I am contemplating brydge pro 11 and 12.9 for my ipads, but the reviews and the inconsistency has been holding me back.
If I can get some honest opinions that can push me over the edge, I would be grateful.
of note, I do have brydge pro 12.9 currently without trackpad and love the build compared with the new Apple magic keyboard.
Thanks,
Steve
I think it really depends on how intensive your use might be.
I own the original Brydge pro 12.9 as well. I actually like the feel of this keyboard (Brydge Pro+) better in terms of typing experience— though I’d have to use my old one again to really articulate how. This one is just a little “clickier” / seems to have a bit more travel and such.
As for the trackpad... I’m middle of the road. Scrolling in the browser is still just janky if you ask me. No inertia, really abrupt stops, makes it feel choppy if you are going to do much scrolling. Others will note a lack of certain gestures that the magic keyboard has— I’ve never used it so I don’t know what I’m missing. This is my main disappointment with this device. It’s not the touch experience you’re used to having with an Apple device.
If I’m doing much typing I’ll find that occasionally it stops responding briefly— not sure if this is the keyboard losing its Bluetooth connection or what, but it can be annoying to have keys suddenly stop registering for a few seconds.
The battery seems worse than the old Pro as well, though I have no idea if this is a battery calibration issue or what.
I am tempted to try a magic keyboard. This is definitely less expensive than Apple’s solution but its still fairly expensive anyways— I’m now regretting a bit letting the Brydge folks talk me into keeping this when I inquired about cancelling my preorder.
I’m reminded of this quote attributed to John Ruskin:
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
Granted, this Pro+ isn’t useless-- I’m getting daily use out of it. It’s just been a bit disappointing. It suffers both from some quality / firmware issues and just from the unexpected competition from Apple themselves (which sucks for them). I don’t know if they’ve got some more substantial firmware updates in the works... but it’s been radio silence for a couple months now. They made a couple of firmware updates to convince people they were going to make things better, but if this is their “good enough”, I’m not likely to buy another Brydge product without better reviews (duh, huh. I rolled the dice based on some of the reviews I’d read about this and just feel like I’m coming up short).