If you have one of the brand new M4 iPad Pros, I'm sure you're looking at one of these two keyboard
accessory options. I have the Apple iPad Magic Keyboard and I have the Logitech Combo Touch.
There's actually a lot of differences between these two devices, so let's go ahead and walk
through all the differences with the design, the materials, the features, the functionality,
the pricing, and even some questions that you guys had previously about the Combo Touch.
Looking at these two keyboard accessories for the new iPad from the top, they both look very
similar. However, they are both very functionally different. I like to think of the iPad Magic
Keyboard as an iPad stand with a keyboard attached, whereas I like to think of the Combo
Touch as an iPad case with a keyboard attached. The iPad Magic Keyboard is the same basic design
that we saw with the original four years ago, with a few different enhancements. It still has that
cool double hinge cantilever design that allows you to adjust for a bunch of different angles,
and it still kind of hovers over the keyboard because of the weight distribution of the iPad
and the case. The Combo Touch has a full-fledged case for the iPad,
protecting basically all the sides with a cutout on top for the Apple Pencil to connect and charge.
I know a lot of people are really concerned about being able to protect their very expensive iPad,
and this is actually a good option to do that, compared to the iPad Magic Keyboard,
which basically has no protection at all on the sides. And if I'm being honest,
if it's closed and you drop it, I think this iPad is going to take a bit of a beating. So having the
extra protection for the Combo Touch is probably going to be pretty handy for a lot of people.
And of course, on the back of the case, you do have that pull-out kickstand, which allows you
to adjust the iPad to a bunch of different angles. The iPad Magic Keyboard can be adjusted from very
low, which is great for like watching videos in bed with this thing sitting on your chest
or on your stomach, and it can go really high to accommodate most situations. With the Combo Touch,
you can go really high, but not quite vertical, but you can go really low in the back,
allowing for a surface like an easel for taking notes or drawing or using a virtual
keyboard if that's how you like to use your iPad. And along with the protection for the Combo Touch,
it also easily connects and disconnects from the keyboard. So you have a full-fledged keyboard
experience when you want it. Being able to disconnect the keyboard and use the Combo Touch
without it is a benefit of the Combo Touch. But if for some reason you don't want to use
the keyboard, but you also don't want to remove it because maybe you're traveling,
you don't want to set it down, forget it, whatever, you have a couple of options.
One is you can connect it and you can just flip it around. And now you have the keys
on the back and you can use iPad as an iPad without worrying about losing the keyboard.
If you don't like the feel of the keys on the back of the Combo Touch,
you can actually flip the keyboard around like so and then put it around the back. And now your
fingers are sitting on that aluminum slab. And lastly, you can use tent mode where you open
up the kickstand and fall back on the case. And now you can watch a movie, play a game or
do whatever without the keyboard in your way and without detaching it completely.
Another bonus tip is that a subscriber also mentioned that when you have the set this way
and you're using tent mode, you can use the keys as a stop. So you can use them to set a
specific angle if that's something that you need. Now with just the way that these two devices are
designed, they take up very different footprints. So if I place them both down to roughly the same
angle of the display, we can see that the iPad Magic Keyboard takes up, say around nine inches
of space. Whereas to get the same angle, you're going to need around 15 inches or 14
and a half inches of space for the Combo Touch. So when it comes down to desk space and work
surface, you might need to account for additional space with the Logitech Combo Touch. Now those
design differences also play a difference in lappability. So trying to use each of these
on your lap is a little bit different experience. With the Magic Keyboard, it's mostly a laptop-like
experience, but because the top is still a bit top heavy, it does have a tendency to want to
lean back a bit. So you really just have to kind of keep your hands on here at all times
or at least one hand to make sure that it doesn't topple over. When it comes to the Combo Touch,
the amount of length needed could be an issue. I do find that if I have any downward slope in
my legs, when I'm using it on my lap, it's very unstable and it wants to disconnect
from the keyboard and fall over. However, if I am able to get my legs more level,
it seems to be a bit more sturdy, but you have to keep your knees together to make sure that
the kickstand stays on your knees. I did want to mention two other things about the hinges
and stability on hard surfaces real quick. So first of all, the hinge on the iPad Magic
Keyboard is extremely sturdy and durable. The previous keyboard that I've had for four years
has not loosened up at all. It's still as strong and rigid as it was previously.
So I have no reason to expect that the Magic Keyboard would be anything different. When
you do have the iPad on the Magic Keyboard and you are tapping, there is just the slightest amount of
wobble. I don't even know if you can see that in my cameras, but unless you're really pushing it,
it shouldn't be that much of an issue. And most of the time you're probably using
the keyboard and trackpad anyway. With the Combo Touch, initially a couple of years ago,
I was concerned about the hinge because it feels flimsier. It feels like you're
bending something rather than using a hinge and kind of rotating or pivoting.
But between the Combo Touch keyboard cases that I've had in the past, the ones that my wife has
used for a couple of years, and the ones that my daughter has used for a couple of years, they all
are perfectly fine and stable with the kickstand after multiple years and many, many bendings. So
I don't really have a concern about the quality or the durability of the hinge on either of these
devices. And I did want to answer one question that I got about the Combo Touch real quick,
and that is how this sits on a hard, flat surface and whether or not it's slippery.
And it is not. This thing is very stable when you put it on a surface. It actually makes less
of a wobble than the iPad Magic Keyboard. And when you're connected to the case, this
thing does not slide around. It stays in place. So that's not something you need to worry about.
Now, both the Magic Keyboard and the Combo Touch have some updated materials this year. The Magic
Keyboard now has a fully aluminum case right here around the keyboard and the trackpad. This is a
really nice upgrade because the rest of the material is this rubbery material that they
used on the previous ones that doesn't necessarily hold up the best over time.
For example, here's the iPad Magic Keyboard from four years ago. I used it a lot in the
first two years and not so much in the second two years. And I had it protected
with a cover for some of that time as well. But what you're going to find is over time,
oils from your hands or from whatever might be on a desk is eventually going to absorb
into this case. And you're going to get these shiny spots, these oily gross things that just
won't go away. You can try using some soap to clean them and it might work for a while,
but eventually the stains just settle in. So it's great that the Magic Keyboard has aluminum
on the inside now, but the outside is still that same kind of rubbery material. Previously with
the Logitech Combo Touch, they used this kind of denim textile material, which was really
resistant to stains and dents and dings. And it actually held up really well over many years.
My daughter does not take care of her stuff and this thing still looks pretty good, but it
looks like for the new iPads this year, Logitech went with a very similar rubbery material to the
iPad Magic Keyboard. I can't say for certain if it's the same material that Apple is using for the
Magic Keyboard, but they feel very, very similar. It's a very soft touch, rubbery type texture.
Unfortunately, I do think that this case is going to suffer the same fate as the Magic Keyboard as
oils and stuff build up on the case. But on the bottom, there is this aluminum plate that is
a fingerprint magnet, but this is a nice little premium touch. The edges of the case around the
iPad itself is kind of like a soft touch plastic. It feels like it's going to do a pretty decent
job of protecting the iPad from dents and dings. Now, I did get a lot of questions
about the weight differences between the Magic Keyboard and the Combo Touch or the iPad with
the case and without the keyboard and all that. So I did go ahead and measure that.
So if you look at the 13-inch iPad Pro by itself, my scale is coming
out to 586 grams. When I measured the Magic Keyboard, it came out to 660 grams. So that
means that together the 13-inch iPad and the iPad Magic Keyboard come out to 1,244 grams.
When I measured just the case portion of the Combo Touch, it came out at 288 grams. And
when I measured the keyboard portion, it came out to 372 grams or 660 grams total, actually
matching the weight of the Magic Keyboard. They weigh the exact same altogether.
But if you wanted to use the Combo Touch case and the iPad without the keyboard,
it comes out to around 872 grams, making it quite a bit lighter than the whole package together.
And as far as thickness of these two accessories, the Magic Keyboard is about 13.1 millimeters and
the Combo Touch is about 13.4. Next, I want to talk about the keyboards, trackpads, USB,
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And my thanks to CalDigit for sponsoring this video. Now, when it comes to using
the keyboards on these keyboard accessories, they were both very, very good. They both have
essentially a one millimeter travel or so, and they both feel the same.
So moving from one to the other is essentially no different. With the 13-inch iPad version,
you get a full-size keyboard, which is awesome because I'm not
really a fan of the smaller keyboards. And both of these keyboards are backlit.
In the past, the Logitech Combo Touch came with a full row of function keys,
but the Magic Keyboard did not. However, this year, both of them now have a full set
of function keys. Both of these keyboards have six keys dedicated for media and for volume.
They both have keys for do not disturb and for dictation, and they both have brightness
keys for the display, which is awesome to finally have on the Magic Keyboard. But the
Magic Keyboard also gets a new escape key. It gets a key for bringing up the app switcher.
It gets a key for Siri, and it gets a key to lock the iPad. With the Combo Touch, you get a home
button that also acts as an app switcher or goes home. You get keys to adjust the brightness of
the backlight of the keyboard, which is really nice, and you get a button for screenshots.
Now, I would gladly give up the app switcher and the Siri button for backlight keys on the
Magic Keyboard because changing the backlight on the Magic Keyboard means going to settings and
then general and then keyboard and then hardware keyboard and then adjusting the brightness right
there. You can't even do that in Control Center, which is insane. When it comes to trackpads,
both of these got big updates this year. The iPad Magic Keyboard is now a haptic
trackpad, which means there's no physical movement or lever or anything happening
that's actually creating a click. Just like with the MacBooks, there's a vibrator motor
inside that tells you you're clicking and makes it feel like a click, but there is no
physical movement. The trackpad is also quite a bit larger than the original Magic Keyboard.
However, the size of the trackpad on the Combo Touch is laughably large compared to
this. Now, it's not quite as big as the trackpad on the 15-inch MacBook Air, but it's pretty close
to the size of the one on the 14-inch MacBook Pro, which means there's plenty of room for
gestures and swiping and tapping and clicking and whatever you need to use the trackpad for. But the
trackpad on the Combo Touch is a physically moving trackpad that actually pushes down and makes a
physical click based on the mechanism below it. I do have a slight concern about the trackpads
though, because as you push around the edges, there is a small gap that appears and leaves
an opening for dirt and crumbs or whatever else to get up in there, which could cause issues in
the future. So that is definitely something to watch out for. And I'm curious if you have one,
do you also see these gaps? Over the last week using both of these trackpads, I found that there
was essentially no difference in the sensitivity or the movement of my fingers on these trackpads.
Both of them feel like they are glass trackpads. And so swiping and scrolling and gestures, all are
very smooth. I haven't felt any lag or stuttering with either one of these trackpads and there
shouldn't be because they are directly connected to the iPad itself through the back pogo pins.
But I will say that when it comes to clicks, there is more force required to push down the
trackpad of the Logitech Combo Touch compared to the haptic trackpad on the iPad Magic Keyboard,
which means that if you use it a lot, if you're clicking 10,000 times a day, you might get a
little bit more fatigue in your fingers than you will on the iPad Magic Keyboard. Next,
I want to talk about USB-C ports. And on the side of the iPad, you have your USB-C Thunderbolt port.
And when it's connected to the iPad Magic Keyboard, you have absolute full access
unobstructed to that port. Because there's no case or protection or anything around the iPad,
you can connect any cable that you have directly to here and shouldn't have any
issue connecting it. There's also plenty of third-party little docks and hubs you
can connect to the iPad as well. With the Logitech Combo Touch,
there is protection around this port. So I found that testing out a couple of cables,
some of them were unable to fit in here depending on the size of the surround around the cable. So
you may have to go through a couple of different cables to find one that's actually going to fit
through the cutout of this Combo Touch case, which could be an issue if you're trying to charge.
Of course, because there's nothing covering the side port on the iPad Pro when connected to the
Magic Keyboard, you don't have that issue, but you also have that secondary charging port, which is
awesome. On the hinge of the iPad Magic Keyboard, you have this secondary USB-C port, which allows
pass-through charging. I think Apple said it allows up to 60 watts of pass-through charging.
I'm not even sure if the iPad can charge at 60 watts, but it can pass through up to 60 watts
through the hinge. This is a big benefit to the iPad Magic Keyboard because it means you can
have power plugged in through the case, but then if you need to connect another device,
say external SSD, you can connect that to the iPad and have both of them connected
at the same time. So those are all the big differences between the Logitech Combo Touch
and the iPad Magic Keyboard for the M4 iPad Pro. Now, as far as pricing goes for the 13-inch
versions, the Logitech Combo Touch will run $259 compared to $349 for the iPad Magic Keyboard. Now,
if you do go with the 11-inch iPad, you can get the Combo Touch for $229 or the
Magic Keyboard for $299. Both of these accessories have benefits over the other.
The Combo Touch obviously has built-in because it's a full-on case, but you can also disconnect
it completely from the keyboard to use it with protection in any mode that you want. You want
to prop it up to watch a movie, you can do that. You want to lean it back to take notes
with an Apple Pencil or draw, you can do that. The iPad Magic Keyboard, on the other hand, has
a little bit more premium materials with this full aluminum top cover. It's got a better lappability,
in my mind, because it has that flat base, and it's got that second USB port on the back or on
the hinge that allows you to be able to charge and use another device at the same time. But
I guess the question is going to be, is any of that worth the $90 difference to you between the
Logitech Combo Touch and the iPad Magic Keyboard? If yes, let me know in the comments down below.
And lastly, I did want to answer just a couple more questions I received about the Logitech
Combo Touch. The first one being, can you use the keyboard when it's not attached to
the iPad? And the answer is no. There is no Bluetooth, there is no wireless connectivity,
there is no battery inside the keyboard to be able to do that.
The keyboard gets its power and connectivity through these little pogo pins, which get passed
to the case and then to the back of the iPad. So when it's disconnected, this is just a dead piece
of plastic. Next, I was asked, does this case work with the new iPad Air? The answer is no,
but there is a version for the iPad Air. It's basically the same, but it's a slightly
lighter color. Next, I was asked if you can use the older iPads in this case. No,
you cannot, but there are different versions of the Combo Touch for previous generation iPads
that have more of this type of texture material. I did get a question about the Logitech Combo
Touch not being compatible with nanotexture glass options for the new iPads. And sure enough, if you
look very closely on Logitech's website, you'll find a note indicating that it's not quote unquote
compatible with the nanotexture glass. I did reach out to Logitech and ask for some information on
that. And they did get back
to me and said that essentially it hasn't been tested. So my guess is they're just concerned
about possible fragility with the nanotexture glass getting scratched, probably while putting
it in and out of the case or when closing it and having it sit on top of the keys. And finally,
I was asked about using a glass screen protector on the new iPads with these cases.
And yes, it seems like they work just fine. I used it on both the Magic Keyboard and the
Logitech Combo Touch. I found no issue inserting it into the Combo Touch case,
and I found no issue with either one of them closing on top of the keyboard.
So that's all the differences between the new Magic Keyboard and Combo Touch for the new iPad
Pros with M4. If you have any questions about either of these devices, let me know in the
comments down below. And if you're interested in more videos like this, you should definitely
check out this video right over here. It's a good one. Hit the thumbs up
button if you liked it, hit subscribe if you want, and I'll see you next time.