You are the brand new owner of an iPad Air 13-inch and you're looking for a keyboard for your iPad
Air that doesn't break the bank. You don't want to spend $350 on the Magic Keyboard because that is
a lot of money and I honestly cannot blame you. Well, in today's video, we are going to look at
the brand new Logitech Combo Touch that's designed for the iPad Air 13 to find out whether it is
worth the money of $229 or if you should really just splurge and get the Magic Keyboard.
Let's get started. Now today's video is broken out into different sections. First we're going to do
is we're going to unbox the combo touch. We'll talk about key features in that keyboard key
features. We'll do a comparison against this and then ultimately what we'll do is the recommendation
based on some personas that I have for you. Now this is the first time I'm seeing this combo touch.
It is brand new for the 13 inch. It's different than last year's iPad Pro because of design
changes of the way the iPad Air looks. But this is actually going to be the first time we're looking
at it here. And holy cow is this trackpad gigantic. I mean, look, it's huge. We're going to get exact
measurements on it, but this is gigantic and it does sound different than it did last year on the
combo touch. So this is a giant trackpad. So this is definitely made for the iPad Air. You can see
it has the single cutout for the camera. The inside, we got the Pogo pins here, which we'll
use to connect to your iPad. Cut out here for your touch or the touch ID button, the cut out
for the Apple pencil. So this is pretty much standard. And then here, this is just an advertisement
for the Logitech crayon. And so before we see the iPad Air, here are the keyboard pins, which are
going to connect to here. Now I purchased blue. This is a great color. I like it a lot. And it's
very easy to insert your iPad, like a polycarbonate shell here on the back. It's the same material,
but it's a little bit softer of a material. This here, if you look, there is a ridge around the
edge of this. This is the same material that's being used on the back here. This might be just
like a harder plastic. There's a little bit of fingerprints. You've got that famous kickstand
that the combo touch is known for, which is a feature a lot of people like. I'm looking at
this. This trackpad is gigantic. Now, what used to be a unique feature about the combo touch is it has
a full row of function keys across the very top, which was unique to the combo touch last year.
They didn't have it on the Magic Keyboard, but now the Magic Keyboard has adopted the same design
styling. Now let's take a look at what those keys are. First is going to give you the app switcher.
Then you have iPad brightness, keyboard brightness, you have the assistant button,
then you have the media control keys, volume control keys, and then one touch sleep wake,
which is a nice touch of functional keys. They just make using the iPad very easy.
Before I go on, if you are enjoying today's video, like I hope you are, consider subscribing to the
channel as I'm trying to grow from 25,000 to 50,000 before the end of the year. And I would
appreciate your support. Now back to the iPad Air. Next, let's get a sense of just how big
the trackpad is. So here, looking at the trackpad along the top, it is 85 millimeters tall by 131
millimeters long. It's definitely one of the biggest trackpads I've seen available for the
combo touch. Let's take a look at the keys. Now these keys on the combo touch 13 inch version
are a little bit different. They have a 19 millimeter key pitch, which is the distance
between the keys and a one millimeter key travel, one millimeter standard and the Logitech keyboards
for the iPad. Now you can see from the keys themselves, we have the large tilde key. These
are kind of normal size keys here. We have an inverted T arrow button. The caps lock is illuminated
and these are all really normal size keys. What is unique here is there is no escape key. Like
there's on the brand new magic keyboard for the iPad pro, but that is specific to the iPad pro.
Next, let's get a weight for this device. Now this is a kitchen scale. There's going to be some margin
of error here, but we have all in the iPad plus the keyboard plus the back housing, 1,311 grams
or two pounds, 14 ounces. We have the keyboard itself weighing 13.75 ounces. The back housing
weighs 10.65 ounces and together, this should be about 24, almost 24 and a half ounces all together.
So the keyboard with the back housing and the iPad is at 46.2 or 46 and a quarter ounces or
1,312 grams. So it's definitely not light, but it's much lighter than it should be because of the
fabric change on the 12.9 inch iPad pro version from last year. It was more fabric and twill on
it, which made it a little bit heavier. It weighs almost 50 ounces. If my memory is serving me
correctly, let's take a look at the magic keyboard and just get a basis of comparison.
Now the magic keyboard by itself is 25.75 ounces. So it's a little bit heavier than the Logitech
combo touch, but we'll see some of the key features here in just a moment and how it differs
and whether or not it's going to be worth the money. So I've set up the magic keyboard, the 13
inch iPad air, as well as a Logitech combo touch. And I just want to show you the differences in the
track pad because I think you will be sorely surprised. Here on the left is going to be the
magic keyboard for $350. And here on the right is going to combo touch for the iPad air 13 inch.
Now, I don't know about you, but just kind of perceiving like this here, there's quite a big
difference between the size of the trackpad. Like this is you, and this is the guy that she told you
not to worry about. There's a huge difference. You can see that the trackpad is obviously much
larger. There's a Lutch Marger palm rust here. These keys look to be about the same size. If
they're any different, they're like millimeters different. Here you have the function keys,
both trackpads support tap to click. There's both inverted T-shaped arrow keys. So there is going to
be a, I would say a big difference only on, you know, where you're putting your wrist. Like here,
if you were using the magic keyboard, you'd have to place your wrist here. This is just a smaller
area versus here. There's much more, I would say much more expansive. And when you look at that too,
but maybe that doesn't tell the whole story. Let's look at the magic keyboard and get an overall
weight for this. If we recall the Latch that combo touch with the iPad Air 13 inch weighed 46 and a
quarter ounces. Now let's take a look at what the magic keyboard weighs. We're coming in at 47.6
ounces. So it's not tremendously heavier, but when you add that up, you have the weight, you have the
lack of function keys, you have the smaller trackpad, you have the lack of protection.
It does start to question why would you pay $350 for the magic keyboard? Well, that answer is pretty
simple. The magic keyboard offers the easiest or the best kind of no fuss typing experience.
You pull your iPad out, you put it in very simply. There's no fussing with it here on the Latch that
combo touch. If you want to use it, if you want to take it out of the case, it's a little bit of a
hindrance. It's not necessarily a pain, but it is something that can be accomplished with maybe
minimal effort. Let's talk about some features that separate the Latch that combo touch from the
magic keyboard. Now that you have a larger wrist rest and a larger trackpad, you have the function
row of keys, you have protection all the way around the side of it. You have the ability to
detach the keyboard, which is a huge plus. If you think about what, if you want to use your iPad,
either in a desk setup or maybe while you're at your couch, you don't just have to bring the
whole thing with you. Now what's great about this hinge is that the hinge will extend anywhere
between 10 and 60 degrees, really giving you a lot of versatility in the number of viewing angles.
So what you could do is that you could lay it down flat if you were going to use it like in
artist mode or an easel mode. If you wanted to FaceTime with someone this way, if you wanted to
hold it while reading, again, this giving you a lot of protection around the sides of it and around
the entire iPad that you don't necessarily get with the magic keyboard. Of course, it is ultimately
easier just to take the iPad off of the magic keyboard, but it doesn't give you the versatility
of being able to use it like this. Now, one of the downsides to the design of the combo touch
is if you are using it in keyboard mode and you are a lap typer, so you're balancing this on your lap,
you have to balance multiple points. So you have to balance the front of the hinge and the back of
the hinge on the front of your thigh and the back of your thigh. So if you are using this in a
situation where you might have unstable surface, you might have some trouble with that because
just that's how it's going to be designed, opposed to balancing the entire base of the magic keyboard
on your thigh. Now, is that worth $300 or $350 for the magic keyboard? The magic keyboard does not
provide an additional $120 of extra value when I compare it to the Lodge.combo touch. It has got a
smaller trackpad, smaller wrist rest. It doesn't have the full row of function keys. It's missing
the full protection. Neither the magic keyboard or the Lodge.combo touch has somewhere to secure your
Apple pencil with a strap. They both rely on the magnet from the iPad itself, but that's not
certainly a big deal to me. It might be to you. I do have a sleeve that I use that stores your Apple
pencil on the back of whatever you adhere to. I'll leave a link to that down in the description below,
but I want to know how are you going to spend your money? What is the better purchase for you? Are
you team combo touch? Are you team magic keyboard? Let me know down in the comments below, hit a
Shamrock emoji down if you made it this far. And if you want to learn how to use your iPad like a pro,
I've got a video for you up here in YouTube is suggesting this video down here, which is really
my favorite video. Make sure you watch that next guys. I hope you are subscribed because I got way
more content coming for you. Talk to you in the next one.