The IT Nerd

Review By Richard Marcellus

I have been a dedicated Apple Fanboy since my first computer, an Apple II+ (yes I’m that old). I have owned many different Apple products over the years including a beloved Newton, my first foray into mobile computing. I currently split my computing needs between a 15″ MacBookPro Retina, a 3rd generation iPad, and an iPhone 5.

Ever since the first iPad was released I have embraced this form of computing. I am now on my third iPad. Generally I use the iPad for most of my content consumption, along with email, calendar, and organizational functions, and I have a multitude of apps to cover my entertainment needs. I travel a lot, and my iPad is always with me. My MacBookPro is mainly used for more elaborate Office type work, and computationally heavier tasks such as Logic Pro, and Aperture. I do use my iPad for word processing using the onscreen keyboard when I am on the road, as I rarely want to add the weight of my MacBookPro to my bag. A desire for a better word processing solution with a laptop like experience led me to try the Brydge+ keyboard.

Right out of the box the Brydge+ keyboard impressed me. It is well made and rigid with an attractive aluminum construction that matches up well with the iPad. There are firm friction mounts that securely anchors the iPad and allow full freedom for positional adjustments so you can get the angle just right. The keyboard has some mass due to the battery, and while that may be considered a negative, it does effectively counterbalance the iPad weight and provides a solid support.

The Bluetooth pairing of keyboard to the iPad was straightforward. The keyboard is around 90% of the size of my MacBook, and while this difference is significant enough to require some adjustment in typing, I adapted quickly. The keyboard layout has all of the expected keys as well as a couple of handy additions (home and sleep buttons). The only compromise is that they needed to shrink the right shift key and it took me a couple of pages of typing to get used to it. The only thing I miss on the keyboard is forward delete (Fn+backspace) which doesn’t work. The keyboard has a nice feel for typing, which aside from the size change, feels very similar to my MacBook, and I can type very quickly with it. This is a huge improvement over the on screen keyboard. The combination is so much like a mini laptop that it took me some time to stop stroking the front surface of my keyboard looking for a trackpad instead of touching the screen.

If this was all, I would be happy, but there’s more. The Brydge+ also has a speaker. It is paired separately from the keyboard to save on battery power (as it doesn’t go to sleep like the keyboard does) and there is a simple toggle (control-B) to turn it on and off when needed. This speaker is a big improvement over the built-in iPad speaker in loudness and frequency response, but it isn’t quite as good as the speakers on my MacBookPro. I still use my headphones when I am focused on music, but for more casual listening, or when I am watching a movie with someone else, this added speaker is greatly appreciated, and saves me from having to carry a separate Bluetooth speaker.

On my current trip I decided to just bring the Brydge+ with my iPad even though I knew I would be doing a lot of writing. This unit works quite well for typing on my lap, unlike more floppy keyboard covers. As is typical, on my flight the guy in front of me immediately leaned his seat back after take off, but even in the cramped space I was able to position the Bridge+iPad on the tray and get a few hours of typing done in relative comfort. I would not have been able to use my 15″ MacBookPro in this space.

I am very happy with this product and I can see myself using it a lot. It does not fully replace a MacBook for all my tasks, but it will further shift my computing time towards my iPad. The iWork suite for iPad plus the increasing number of sophisticated note-taking and organizational apps are getting close to replacing the more traditional Office applications for me, and the gap will continue to narrow as the processing power increases on the iPad.

This product is highly recommended.

Besides being an Apple Fanboy, Richard Marcellus is cancer researcher who has a Ph.D biochemistry. 

This entry was posted on June 9, 2014 at 7:00 am and is filed under Products with tags Brydge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.