hey guys it's vadim with max tech and welcome to another video right here in
front of me i have two m1 ipad pros both running on ipad os
beta software as you can see and we have two keyboard cases
this is of course apple's magic keyboard case in the new
really nice white finish which i love and this costs 350
that is a lot of money for a lot of people so because of that
we have a new budget option this is bridges
pro max plus i think for 250 so you save a hundred dollars by going
with this option and there are a ton of changes this year
and i'm very happy to see them so before we get into actually comparing
how it all works i want to take these ipads off as you
guys can see on the new bridge we finally have
a macbook style hinge just like that which is
super nice because previously with the bridge pro plus on the 11 inch that we
reviewed you actually had to slide the ipad
into the hinges which was a little bit tough and annoying
and on top of that because of that you couldn't use a screen protector at all
because they were just such a tight clearance
so now we have a new design just like that and it works
magnetically as you just saw just give you example
just snaps on just like that very quick and easy so i'm so happy
that bridge went with this new design so just like a macbook
you go up all the way down all the way compared to the magic keyboard case
where you have this really interesting hinge
that it's kind of like a dual hand just pops up like this and
then snaps into place and i absolutely love this hinge because
the ipad pro floats you can see the bottom here is not attached now what's
interesting this year is that the bridge is actually heavier this is
2.1 pounds just the keyboard case itself compared to 1.6
on the magic keyboard case now what's interesting about that is because of the
higher weight on the bridge you would expect it to do a little bit
better in terms of the i guess balance between the ipad itself
and the keyboard but the bridge is actually more
top-heavy check this out you lift it up slightly it's already
tipping over compared to this watch this magic
keyboard case is less top-heavy you can bring it all the way up here
it still falls down so it's going to have less of a chance to fall over
and that's because of this floating design where the weight is kind of
dispersed better and now comparing the full setup
i can definitely feel a ton of extra weight with the bridge
3.6 pounds compared to 3.1
this is like way heavier than a macbook pro like
it would be a pain to carry this around i know it's not that big of a difference
half a pound but still you could feel this over time and one thing i am
noticing is that the bridge is quite a bit thicker
like this whole extra back plate piece overhangs over the magic keyboard case
so that's another thing that's a little bit more bulky on the bridge
and one thing that i just noticed on the bridge is that there's no longer a notch
to help you open it up so in that case you'll have to stick it
on the hinge and then kind of pull the keyboard down
which is the way that we open the magic keyboard case because it also does not
have a notch and one thing i am noticing on the magic keyboard case is that it's
a little bit more grippy because like the whole case is
like a rubbery material compared to the bridge which kind of does
move around easier and that's because on the bottom
there's just these four pads and that's it so it's not
as grippy and on top of that if you are going to be using your ipad like this
and kind of tapping on it you can see that it has a little bit of
wobble but watch what happens when you go to the bridge
so it's a little bit annoying if you're going to be tapping and one thing i
really like about the bridge is that you get a more
fine-tuned hinge angle so you can go all the way from here all the way back
just like that and that's one of the things that people complained
about with the magic keyboard case because it literally
only goes up to here so sometimes you may want to go further but you can't
which is annoying with the magic keyboard case so i think that's some
extra points for the bridge guys look at this bridge
you did a killer job look at that that's all you got to do so this actually
gets close to the experience i was just lifting this
up look at that just take it off no issues at all now before we get into
comparing the keyboards and the track pads i do want
to mention the ports both of these have a usbc port on the
side right here for the bridge and built into the hinge
for the magic keyboard case now the one in the bridge
actually charges the built-in battery because yes
it does use bluetooth but with the magic keyboard case
it is a live hardwired connection and it uses the
smart connector right here you can see on the magic keyboard case you have
these three pins and it matches up to the same three pins
magnetically so there are no batteries on the magic
keyboard case and that is also why the keyboard
section is so much thinner this is like
literally twice as thin as the bottom portion of the bridge and
if you're wondering why the magic keyboard case has that usb-c
port even though there are no batteries well that's because
this supports pass through charging so you plug it into the hinge
and through those three little pins it's gonna charge up
your ipad pro that is probably one of the best features
of the magic keyboard case so if you're plugging it into the bridge
it's literally just charging the built-in battery just for
the keyboard case and because of the hardwired connection
it works instantly there is no setup you literally put it on there works just
like that
compared to the bridge which you do have to do some setup so let's go ahead and
pair it let's go into the bluetooth let's turn it on
pair it just like that request to pair there you go it is connected and
everything should start working but the downside with buying a third-party
keyboard case compared to apple's own magic keyboard
is that you have to download the firmware yourself
yep there you go update we have a new version of
firmware so let's go ahead and connect your bridge keyboard to power
serious okay we have to grab the power cable hold on oh
never mind it is running the latest firmware i guess we're fine
let's go ahead and move on to the keyboard comparison before we get
into the track pads hey guys this is actually pretty nice
yeah this this feels like a really nice keyboard like i love the tactile
feedback that's really responsive i've got to say that bluetooth 5.0 is
doing wonders because wow that is responsive okay this is
super responsive but these keys just don't have as much
travel wow i like this keyboard yeah the bridge
the keys themselves better on the bridge however one thing
that annoys me with the bridge is that these
keys are pretty small like look how small they are look at all these big
gaps compared to the magic keyboard case you have
basically full size keys but one of the biggest complaints with the magic
keyboard case is that you do not have a top row of function keys i really wish
apple added that but they did not so right here you can see
you have basically an escape key look at that brings you back to home
you have a lock key just like that i think you should be able to look at that
spacebar that's their new um instant start or something like that
you have what is this oh look at that keyboard backlighting you have
three settings however on the magic keyboard case you don't have that key
but it all works automatically and now that we have the lights off you guys
should be able to see those differences in the back lighting you have off low
medium high so there you go back lighting works
pretty well now on the magic keyboard case it obviously does not have a key
for that it uses the ambient sensor connected
through the smart connector so it lights up
itself when it knows you're in a dark room but anyway getting back to
the keyboard case we have this key right here that brings
up the on-screen keyboard if you ever need to you also have the
global key this is the language change key if you have multiple languages which
is nice you have your media keys pause play volume up and down you have
your bluetooth and your power button and now let's finally get into the most
important thing which is the trackpad and as you can see
this trackpad is massive absolutely huge compared to this tiny little magic
keyboard case track pad check out this difference from that top
camera that is insanity that must be like i don't know
close to three times the surface area two and a half times
that's insane and what i absolutely love about the track pad on the magic
keyboard case is that you have an even clicking feel
all the way around even up to these corners which is unique
to macbooks they are basically the best track pads out there
and apple actually used a new patented technology to make this happen
compared to on a lot of the third-party cases including this bridge
you have a diving board design so up here at the top
it's incredibly hard to click and as you get lower easy very easy so
it's kind of inconsistent because it's attached here at the top
it's really hard to click in the center it's actually pretty decent
but i definitely prefer the magic keyboard trackpad
for that and now let's get into the trackpad gestures and that was the
number one reason why we told you not to buy the bridge pro
plus because it didn't support apple's gestures and it was just total mess so
now let's get into the new bridge keyboards gestures and the magic
keyboard cases now i do want to admit something
we shot a lot of video comparing these two and we were having massive
issues with the bridge keyboard case it was super glitchy it was unresponsive it
was freezing up the ipad so what we've done is we actually
reverted this silver ipad to ipad os
14.6 it's no longer on the ipad os 15 beta
while this one still is and i do want to mention that we did try out the
assistive touch accessibility settings which is
recommended for this bridge keyboard case and we still have these massive
issues so what i'm going to do is i'm simply going to swap these
put this one over here so as you can see right there we have ipad os 15
right here for the magic keyboard case and 14.6
on the bridge and just to show you guys with the beta of ipad os 15 the magic
keyboard case it works perfectly no issues at all so
that's kind of nice that you can download the beta if you want to with
the magic keyboard case it's very reliable you're never going to
have any issues with firmware updates or anything like that and now back on this
one right here let's go ahead and find the bluetooth settings and connect
it and now let's see if those gestures are working well
let's go ahead and do a three finger swipe to home there you go
three fingers and stop there you go look at that for the app switcher let me show
you real quick swiping left and right on the magic
keyboard case happens perfectly swiping up app switcher
scrolling is perfect let me go to a web page perfect
scrolling super smooth you can scroll slowly you can go very quickly perfect
experience with a magic keyboard case never any issues and let's try
the bridge all right scrolling's pretty smooth let's go ahead and try some
scrolling here still works pretty quickly it is
slightly glitchy sometimes it happens faster than you want it to like you're
trying to go slower still a lot better than what we had with
ipad os 15. bridge now supports pinch to zoom so
let's go ahead and try it hey working fairly reliably
oh it's glitching up there all right so it's not a perfect experience
yeah it's not letting me pinch out come on all right let me show you on the
magic keyboard case here we go all right
pinching nice and smooth like i can tell that the fps while
zooming in is much nicer look at that look at that
responsiveness all right let's try it here okay it's not letting me zoom out i
can't zoom out for some reason let me go back
let's try it again yeah look at that there's like drop frames
so pinch to zoom doesn't work as well swiping left and right
works pretty decently oh there's some lag there
look at that whoa okay what happened there okay well while it's
doing that let me just go back here and look at
that that is reliable super smooth we're not getting those lag
issues wow that's fast so now with all of that set and compared
let's finish off with the original question
is it worth saving that 100 and going with the bridge or should you just spend
the extra money 350 bucks which is very expensive and
just go straight for the magic keyboard case
well as you guys saw in this video the bridge is more bulky
it's quite a bit more heavy the hinge design is definitely nice
and the top row of function keys is nice but
the trackpad experience is not as good because you have the diving board design
even though it's a larger trackpad the one on the magic keyboard case is just
amazing and on top of that with the gestures it's perfect
on the magic keyboard case even if you're upgrading to ipad os 15 beta or
whatever it just works perfectly because it's
hardwired compared to the bridge where you could have one firmware
version that messes things up or you have to wait for an update to get things
fixed
but overall the gestures were working pretty well but definitely not perfect
like the pinch to zoom was glitching out and swiping between apps
was having some weird glitch issue whereas you have none of that
no worry at all with the magic keyboard case and of course you have the
pass-through charging which is nice leaving the original port for you to use
for other things so overall guys i'd say comparing
everything that we saw here i think it's worth spending the
extra 100 because you're getting a very reliable
experience the premium design it's just gonna work
for years and years compared to this where you might have bluetooth issues
the battery is gonna die in you different stuff like that
you don't have to deal with any of that with the magic keyboard so with that
said i've got to say good job bridge because this is a huge
improvement compared to what we experienced last year
the gestures and everything works a lot better but overall
if you do want to save 100 definitely go for it and you get that extra top row
function keys you get the extra display angles but for
me i think the magic keyboard all the way so
hopefully you guys know this video and if you did go ahead and click the circle
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videos right there thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video