Logitech Builds Its Ultrathin iPad Keyboard into a Case

I couldn’t live without an iPad Bluetooth keyboard — but there’s no one wireless iPad Bluetooth keyboard I can’t live without. Actually, I like to try as many of them as possible. And it looks like the next one I’ll be test driving is a new model from Logitech, the Keyboard Folio.

The Folio uses a keyboard similar to the one in Logitech’s Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, but builds it into a case which protects both sides of the tablet. (It’s a different design than Logitech’s existing Solar Folio— a keyboard powered by the sun — and also presumably avoids one problem I’ve had with the Ultrathin, which is the tendency of its magnets to refuse to snap snugly enough to the iPad to keep the keyboard from plopping off.) Unfolded, it lets you prop up the iPad at two different viewing angles.

A version of the Keyboard Folio for the full-sized iPad will ship in April for $99.99; a similar one for the iPad Mini (shown at right) will follow in May for $89.99. More thoughts once I’ve had the opportunity to touch one or both for myself.

In case you’re curious: the iPad keyboard I’m currently using is Zagg’s ZAGGkeys PROfolio+. Like Logitech’s new Folio, it’s a protective case, and I’m pretty pleased with it overall. But the build quality seems iffy (the covering of mine is coming off in two spots) and while I like the fact that the keyboard is backlit, I wish it weren’t so very easy to accidentally switch on the light when I don’t need it (it’s done with a key to the immediate right of the space bar). It also has a tendency to collapse when I balance it on my lap at certain angles, something which doesn’t happen with Logitech’s Ultrathin. The search for the perfect iPad keyboard goes on.