hey guys this is Bateen with max tech and right here in front of me are the
two most popular and premium keyboard cases with built-in track pads for
Apple's iPad pro we've got the magic keyboard case that's a little bit pricey
it's $300 for the 11 inch iPad pro and we've got the Bridge Pro Plus for the 11
inch which is $200 so you're saving a hundred bucks by going with this option
so what we're gonna do in this video is compare basically everything we can
between these two keyboard cases including the keyboards the track pads
the hinge the features everything to see if you can go with the bridge save that
$100 and still get the same level of quality or experience or if you should
just spend the extra hundred bucks and go straight for the magic keyboard case
so let's go ahead and unbox the Bridge Pro Plus let's slide this over to the
side all right here we go same kind of unboxing experience as before boom as
you guys can see you got our trackpad right here cool so we got the new
updated version of this magnetic cover so I guess I can start off with putting
on that cover just magnetically holds on just like that
it's kind of weird didson it doesn't really hold on that well it kind of
slides all over the place but it's okay set that down let's open up the hinges
on the bridge Pro Plus slide this guy in just like that there you have it so now
that we've got this on let's go ahead and close it and basically compare the
design to the magic keyboard case this is actually pretty nice I like this feel
of this magnetic cover this is kind of like a polyurethane rubbery kind of
finish and the thing that sucks about this is that you're gonna get little
marks or not really stains but like marks that happen over time on this guy
I'm not sure about this magnetic cover but if we flip it over to the other side
we should get the same thing for the imagine keyboard case but here we
actually get like I don't know if this is aluminum feels like a MacBook as you
can see we have these rubber stands on the bridge because it would slide all
over the place with the aluminum compared to this which is actually
really grippy and nice so what a lot of people complained about
with the magic keyboard cases that the sides of the iPad pro are exposed and
unprotected but what I'm seeing here with the bridge is that it's actually
the same thing now in terms of the size they're actually really really similar
all the way around except that the magic keyboard has the little hinge portion
sticking out so this is actually a little bit smaller but if you're
comparing the thickness you can actually easily tell the bridge Pro Plus is quite
a bit thicker than the magic keyboard case if you're looking at this side
profile view now in terms of the weight the bridge Pro Plus keyboard case
without the magnetic cover weighs 550 grams compared to 603 on the magic
keyboard case so this is definitely heavier now both of these keyboard cases
have USB C ports on the side you can see that the bridge Pro Plus has one right
here but it's actually only for charging the internal battery of this keyboard
case but on the magic keyboard you also have a USB C port right here in the
hinge and what's really cool about it is that it's used for pass-through charging
that means if you plug in your power adapter it's going to charge the iPad
pro itself which you can't do with the British Pro Plus obviously because it
uses bluetooth and the magic keyboard doesn't have any internal batteries
either so this is a really cool unique feature that you can't find anywhere
else now let's compare the hinges on both of these and how easy it is to open
up the one thing that's annoying on the magic keyboard is that there's no notch
here to put your finger in so you kind of have to jam your fingers in and it's
tough to open it up one thing that I found one solution is to put it on its
hinge first and then drop down the keyboard portion that's the way I use it
I find it's the best but on the bridge you actually do have a notch right here
so you can actually put your finger in here you just lift it up like that so
definitely much easier to open with the bridge now comparing the feel of the
hinge what's cool about the magic keyboard is that it kind of snaps into
place which is kind of cool but the issue is that you don't have a huge
range of adjustability it can only go like that but with the bridge you
basically have like 0 to 180 degrees of of angle adjustability you can go here
here here you could even lay it down all the way flat like that which is really
really unique and the unique thing about the magic keyboard is that it has this
new floating design which is pretty cool and it kind of puts it more upright and
closer to you for touch input compared to this where it's kind of a little bit
further back it's not that big of a deal but it's definitely a cool design for
the magic keyboard but on the other hand with the bridge you can actually take
off the iPad is kind of hard that's what's kind of kind of sucks about that
take off this magnetic cover you could actually put it in backwards and fold it
down and basically you can use it like this for the Apple pencil for drawing so
this gives you a nice little way that you can draw unfortunately it does touch
the display a little bit so if you use a screen protector that'll be an issue but
this is definitely pretty cool now on the magic keyboard you can't do that you
can't lay it down or lay it flat the best you can do is put it upside down
like that and then draw however the cool feature about the magic keyboard is that
you simply lift it off and you've got tablet mode and then you simply set it
back onto the keyboard case now another thing I've really liked about the magic
keyboard case is how slim this bottom keyboard portion is it's really really
slim compared to the Bridge Pro Plus where the bulk of the device is in this
keyboard section so it's thick like a MacBook compared to a really really thin
and flush design so it's actually really impressive how Apple was able to fit all
of that in such a slim keyboard portion so finally without further ado let's go
ahead and start comparing these keyboard cases and since the bridge uses
bluetooth you actually have to go ahead and turn it on and then start pairing it
all right so it's not turning on it should I'm holding it I'm pressing it
it is battery-powered I think the battery actually came dead I guess I'm
gonna grab the charging cable charge it up a little bit and then we'll resume
with the comparison because what's cool about the magic keyboard case there's no
batteries no Bluetooth you simply put it on in the smart connector makes the
connection between the keyboard and the trackpad and it works without any
batteries plug and play compared to the battery design on the
bridge so I just finished charging the bridge Pro Plus keyboard keys for about
20 minutes finally we can turn it on there you go it is on let's go into the
Bluetooth and let's hold that little pairing button there you go Bridge Pro
Plus now before I get into comparing these two I actually have to go and
download the bridge Connect app to download the latest firmware update it
is a little unfortunate that you have to download the app and go through all
those extra steps compared to the magic keyboard which you simply put on and it
works right out of the box apparently you have to plug in the power cable into
the bridge keyboard just to update the firmware so I'll be right back now
before we get into the most important feature of these keyboard cases which is
the track pads let's first compare the keyboards all right so what I'm noticing
with this keyboard is that it actually feels really really good I like the feel
of these keys a lot of feedback a lot of response really nice key travel
I mean comparing key travel it seems like the bridge has more key travel so
that's really nice feels really good to type the only downside I'm saying with
the bridge is that the keys are actually really small if you compare the size
like look at that they're quite a bit smaller than the ones on the magic
keyboard but it actually feels pretty comfortable to type on now as far as the
typing feel on the magic keyboard case it feels really good I really like it
it's really similar to the new magic keyboard for the 20/20 MacBook Air and
MacBook Pro it's definitely a great keyboard especially because of the thin
bottom keyboard portion on the magic keyboard so it definitely feels really
good but I think I'd give the keyboard feel over to the bridge the highlight
feature for the bridge is the top row of function keys so you've got this top key
right here which is the Escape key really nice you've got the little lock
heat you've got the backlighting adjustment
you've got the screen brightness you've got the on-screen keyboard the language
you've got the media keys skip go back pause and you've got volume keys this is
really really nice to have so much more convenient to use these keys compared to
the magic keyboard keys which unfortunately does not have a top row of
function keys thing is if it did it'd be kind of
awkward to reach and grab those because of the floating design and if you've
seen I fix its x-ray image of the magic keyboard case you'll know that there's a
lot of tech going on inside there so it'd be pretty tough to add another
layer another top row of function keys because the trackpad is already kind of
squeezed down it's the biggest you can make it so you wouldn't really be able
to fit it there now one of the cool things about the bridge is the
backlighting control key you've got three different settings
now obviously the magic keyboard doesn't have that but it does have a special
feature where it actually uses the iPad pros ambient light sensor to detect when
the light goes down in your room and it actually turns on the magic keyboard
backlighting automatically by itself and it gets brighter as it gets darker now
in terms of the keyboard shortcuts there's actually this really cool
feature where you just hold down the command button and it shows you all of
the available shortcuts and as far as I know everything should be working like
for example command n should make a new note so that works on both of these and
we get the same list so it looks like you get the same shortcuts with both of
these keyboard cases now let's finally go down and compare the trackpads which
is the number one reason why you're buying either of these keyboard cases
now when I first got this magic keyboard I thought the trackpad was really small
compared to the Mac books but looking at the bridge pro pluses trackpad it
actually looks even smaller so if we compare how at all they are they're
actually really similar but on the magic keyboard case it does get quite a bit
wider so that's definitely a big perk a big plus for the magic keyboard case in
terms of the clicking feel it seems like the bridge does have a diving board
design which basically means that it's hooked up at the top here so near the
bottom it's really nice and easy to click but as you get closer to the
top it gets harder and hard in near the top is basically like impossible to
click it really really hard but at the bottom really really easy to click now
the cool thing about the magic keyboard case and its trackpad is that you get an
even clicking feel I fix it actually popped off the
trackpad on the magic keyboard and they found that it has a really unique design
which allows it to have even clicking pressure all the way around what I'm
also noticing is that it's very easy to click the trackpad on the magic keyboard
compared to on the bridge it's kind of like hit or miss sometimes it'll click
sometimes it won't but if you like to use tap to click like I do luckily both
of these support it so as you can see tap to click I could actually do to
finger right click and of course you can do the same thing with the magic
keyboard now let's compare the responsiveness of swiping on both of
these track pads what I like about the magic keyboard is that it it's really
nice lag free responsive just swipes now let's go ahead and try the bridge it's
not bad but it kind of like glitches back and forth look it kind of stutters
sometimes it doesn't even work look at that I'm swiping and it's not swiping so
definitely points taken off of the bridge for not really being that
responsive in terms of the swiping now let's go ahead and test the scrolling up
and down like for a web page or for Facebook so here we are it's working
really nice and fast and responsive on the magic keyboard case seems like with
the swiping it kind of like goes in chunks instead of being smooth it like
super quick and then it stops super quick and stops and what I've also
noticed is that sometimes you'll swipe and it doesn't register look at that I
just swiped a couple of times and it's not registering correctly so the
scrolling is worse as well and another really cool feature with the magic
keyboard is that you could actually pinch to zoom just like that so it works
within the Photos app you're actually able to pinch out and choose different
tabs like that which is pretty cool but I think on the bridge it actually does
not work at all pinch to zoom does not work for anything so I guess one way you
can get to the home screen with the bridge is just simply hitting that
button right there and it looks like you can also go down to the bottom of the
screen to get to the home screen yep just like that and I think you can get
down to the app expose if you go come on even harder down there you go but what
bugs me is that you can't do a three finger swipe left and right in between
apps now one of my favorite gestures with the magic
whereas I can go up and you can actually adjust the brightness or the volume and
I've noticed that it actually does not work it does not work on the bridge Pro
Plus for some reason even though scrolling works this feature doesn't
work so before I get into my conclusion I want to remind you guys of the prices
200 bucks for the bridge Pro Plus 300 bucks for the magic keyboard case so the
question is do you just go for the magic keyboard case for $300 I know it's
expensive very expensive but you get a perfect experience you don't get
batteries that can die on you you don't get bluetooth it works really really
well or do you save the 100 bucks and buy the Bridge Pro Plus in my honest
opinion the most important thing about these two pretty expensive keyboard
cases is the track pads and as you guys just saw the track pad support on the
bridge Pro Plus it really sucks it doesn't work like you'd expect when
you're looking at the spec sheet you're looking at their page and my advice for
those people who really care about track pad support simply go with the magic
keyboard case for $300 because if you end up buying this for 200 bucks and
then you start using the trackpad and you get really disappointed it's gonna
suck you're gonna wish that you spent the extra money on the magic keyboard
case so my final conclusion is that if you want to go with the bridge just go
with the bridge pro model that does not come with the trackpad just get that
model because it's a lot cheaper there's some sales going on in Amazon I'm going
to link to them down below just choose that if you're going for the bridge and
if you're going for the magic keyboard case there's some links down there below
as well so hopefully you guys enjoyed this comparison let me know your
personal thoughts on each of these keyboard cases down in the comments
below and make sure to click the subscribe button above because I'm going
to be doing a review of this Bridge Pro Plus very soon and I already did a
review of the magic keyboard case which you can check out right over there
thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video
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