- Guys, this is it.
This is literally what I've been waiting for my entire life.
(upbeat music)
Hey guys, welcome back to the channel.
If you're new here, my name is Ali.
I'm a doctor working in the UK and on this channel
we explore these strategies and tools
that help us live happier, more productive lives.
Isn't that fun?
Now, the iPad Pro has been one of the key tools
in my productivity arsenal since way back in 2017.
And I actually do really like the old Keyboard Folio,
The keyboard is pretty nice, it's actually was one
of my favorite typing experiences on the planet.
But when I first saw the ad for the new Magic Keyboard,
I nearly had a stroke because this thing
just looked absolutely incredible.
I've got my hands on it for the first time.
This is the first impressions review
and it has so far completely blown me away.
So, let's start with the most important thing
and that is the keyboard.
The question is how fast can I type on this thing.
(keyboard clicks)
Ah, this is the best words per minute,
I've ever got in my life.
Previously my record was 154 on the old version
of the Apple Magic Keyboard.
This is literally the first time
I have ever typed on this Magic Keyboard.
The first typing's I've ever done on it
other than just a few bits here and there.
156 doable words per minute, accuracy, 99.23%.
Yeah, the keyboard is obviously fantastic.
It feels exactly like the MacBook Air scissor
kind of keyboard which is now what the keyboard mechanism is
on the 16 inch MacBook Pro as well.
And this just feels absolutely perfect.
Like there's such a nice level of
(keyboard clicks)
clickiness to the keys, the space bar is good,
everything feels well proportioned.
The only gripe I would have with it slightly is
that as I am kind of typing in this configuration,
my hand is sort of occasionally hitting that.
If I do a big kind of motion and sort of that kind of play
and then my hand does occasionally brush against the bottom
of the iPad Pro in this sort of configuration.
I imagine in this position it's not a problem at all
but in this one, which is sort of
the most horizontal position you can get on this.
It is slightly annoying, but yeah, no
this is just so much better than the old one
and I thought the old one was absolutely amazing.
The keyboard actually apparently has a backlight to it.
So, if I turn this light off, now we should be able
to see the back lighting of the keyboards.
And apparently it's a bit of a bullock
to actually change the back lighting.
You have to go on settings, and then you have to go on
like keyboard brightness.
So you can see how the brightness changes as I adjust that.
But to be honest, apparently it's just better
to be ambient light sensors of the iPad
and it just kind of works.
Right, lets put the light back on.
So that is basically the keyboard.
Let's talk about the Track Pad now.
Well the Track Pad is quite nice.
It feels a lot more natural, kind of navigating
the iPad using the Track Pad.
The thing that's always annoyed me about the iPad Pro
and one of the main reasons why I think every thing
that you do on an iPad Pro is just inherently less efficient
than using a proper MacBook is because you have to
reach up and touch stuff.
Like, if I wanted to open a Safari window,
the most natural thing to do would be to click on Safari.
If I wanted to navigate YouTube, the most natural thing
to do would be to kind of scroll like this,
click the button, type some stuff.
But now this is as good a Track Pad
as you get on the MacBook's.
It's a lot smaller obviously.
It actually clicks, rather than just being
a forced touch Track Pad but so far
it feels really really good.
And I could imagine that this is gonna significantly
increase my productivity on the iPad.
Just because having this, especially when it comes
to adjusting text.
Let's go on there, and if I were to write out draft.
(keyboard clicking)
It feels very natural to use the Track Pad to select text.
And so for me because I make money on the Internet
based off of, kind of this stuff that I can produce mostly
by writing which then turns into video script.
This is gonna pay for itself.
It's an absolutely no brainer of a purchase.
Because even though this was 350 pounds,
if it just helps me create one more video
in a three year period, it will have paid for itself.
This is an absolute no brainer if you're someone
who values productivity and if you can see the return
on investment from buying something like this.
Let's now talk about the thing
that everyone is talking about, the fact that it floats.
So it does sort of float.
What you can do is you take it off,
and this thing is very rigid.
Like this is as far as this part of the case goes.
But it's very very well built.
It's very strong.
And then you gently place the iPad on
and it magnetizes to the back of the thing.
And now you can see that you can sort of go this angle,
which is a bit pointless, unless you've got it kind of
laying in bed which might bee useful.
And then you can go up to this angle
but you can't press it down anymore than that
because it just doesn't work.
And if you over press it, then it's gonna fall over.
So this is I think a pretty good angle
to have the keyboard on.
I can't really imagine having it more horizontal unless
for example I was using the Apple Pencil in which case
I might want it more horizontal.
Apple Pencil goes onto the top.
If I want to write with the Apple Pencil it's on Notability,
which is my favorite note taking app for the iPad.
I'm gonna do a comparison between Notability
and Good Notes at some point.
Yeah, if I'm writing with the Apple Pencil
this sort of configuration, maybe if you're an artist
and your sort of painting and doing your over the hills
and far away kind of paintings on the iPad,
this would make sense.
But as someone whose writing on it,
apparently what you can do,
is you can put it into this sort of configuration.
This actually works surprisingly well. (laughs)
This sort of angle, just sort of turning it over.
It's a bit ghetto
but it works surprisingly well for writing.
I don't think that's how you're supposed to use it
but that is probably the configuration I would have it in
if I were using the Apple pencil extensively.
Unfortunately the experience of writing on this
is a bit crapper right now because I haven't got
the Paperlike screen protector on it yet.
It's on the way, I had to order a new one because
this is the 12.9 inch iPad, it's new.
My favorite screen protector of all time
makes it feel like paper writing on it.
Links in the video description,
check out the Paperlike screen protector.
At the moment, I'm not a fan of this screen.
It looks kind of cool.
I'm gonna be taking this to work every day
for the next month and I'll be filming some beral
at work and I'll get some impressions
from my fellow medical doctor colleagues
about what they think about the float.
I really want to flex the float on people
because I imagine not many people
at work will have seen this in real life.
And so people might be like,
ooh is that the new iPad Pro Magic Keyboard.
I'll be like, yes, thank you for noticing.
This is exactly why I have it, to flex on people at work.
Speaking of flex, there's not much flex to this case.
If we look at the old one,
there was quite a lot of flex to it.
It's a sort of flimsy, it sort of moves around.
(air whooshing) (object crashing)
But with this new one, it is very very very sort of rigid
and well built.
Like this as a whole package feels kind of heavy.
It feels a lot beefier than just
having the folio case on it.
And in fact if you look at the comparisons online,
people have very kindly weighed just this keyboard case
and the iPad.
And this weighs about 700 grams which this is more
than what the iPad weighs, supposedly.
Yeah, build quality, amazing.
One of the annoying things about it
that I mean immediately realized is
that when you have the iPad like this
and you want to open up the keyboard case,
how do you do it?
When you have a laptop, you expect that you can
just flick it up and it would just work.
But with this, you have to kind of
get your fingers underneath it,
and it becomes almost like a two-handed job.
Oh, okay is there a way to do it with a single hand job.
That sounds weird.
I don't think I can actually open this with just one hand.
This has to be a two handed job.
A little bit fiddly to get out, but once you get it out
then it looks pretty great if I say so myself.
Another really cool thing about this, is the fact
that apparently it has pass through charging.
Plugging in a USB-C cable, boom it's charging.
So now this USB port is free to do stuff.
To be honest, I don't intend to plug
a lot of things into here but now
that I've got the 12.9 inch iPad Pro with I think I went
for the 256GB hard drive, I can now do things
like plug in my Samsung T5 SSD's
to potentially even try editing videos off of this.
Potentially photo editing off of this.
I've got one of these, where is it?
One of these like SD card reader type things.
I stick the SD card in and I would still have pass
through charging if I'm doing something intensive
like editing photos, or editing videos,
or music production which is something
that I want to get into.
Other than that, what else is there to say about this?
It feels really good closing it like uh,
you just kind of press it and then.
(case shuts hard) Ah, look at that.
I've got to do that again.
(case shuts hard) (groans)
That is a well designed product.
You've got the Apple logo on the back.
It's not too garish,
it's not like the gold iPhone or something.
A very subtle embossing of the Apple logo.
Yeah, I mean this is absolutely sick.
The question is can it be used in a lap?
So I'm going to put it in my lap.
I would say it can be used in a lap.
It does require me to slouch a little bit.
In fact, I'm going to go over to the sofa right now
and try and use it in a lap in different places
around the house, so be right back.
It's just so good,
I feel like a genuine productivity grease monkey
when I'm typing on this.
Okay, really go on the sofa like this.
What about like this?
Yeah, nothing wrong with that either.
How far off the lap can it go?
Yeah, because it's quite top heavy it does need
to kind of be supported a bit more.
Whereas if it were a real laptop I guess you could
put it off the edge a little bit more,
but this one is quite top heavy
so it probably will fall over.
And now I am using it on my lap in bed.
Yeah, this is some good stuff.
So yeah, lap test passed with flying colors.
Works beautifully on the sofa and on the bed.
It's a keyboard, it's a keyboard case.
(case falls hard)
It probably protects the iPad a fair bit.
It's gonna be a bit weird getting used to
opening it kind of the wrong way around.
I'm hugely excited about the possibilities
that this keyboard is gonna bring to me.
And just as a sort of first impression,
this is the single best product
I have used in a very very long time.
There's really nothing about this I can fault other
than the price.
It's quite expensive, it's $300 pounds or $300 dollars
for the 11 inch.
$350 for the 12.9 inch.
But like I said for me and for a lot of people
I know the return on investment for this is gonna be,
it's gonna make it an absolute no brainer.
If you're a student, do you need it?
Probably not.
If you're a student and you have loads of spare cash
to burn, then get it yeah.
You won't be disappointed, this is fantastic.
If you like this and you want to see a comparison
of the 11 inch version versus the 12.9 inch
and hear the reasons why I've got the 12.9 inch now.
And why I was wrong about why I used
to think the 11 inch was better.
Then do click the video over there
or if you haven't yet got an iPad and you don't know
which one to get then click the video here
which will be a long in-depth analysis of exactly
which iPad you should get.
Thank you so much for watching
and see you in the next video, bye-bye.