Brydge 12.9 Max+ Adds a HUGE Multi-Touch Trackpad to iPad Pro! REVIEW! By AppleInsider

Welcome, everyone welcome to apple insider. It is Andrew here you can find me on the tweeters at Andrew underscore OSU and if you guys have been paying attention to the channel for a while, I'm a fan of bridge the bridge keyboards for the iPad. I love them. They are, in my opinion, the most premium alternative to apple's own hardware, and they usually come with it like they're, expensive, but they're less than apples. So it's kind of like a middle ground to like giving you a good, solid premium product without apple's price tags. I for a lot of people who love the magic keyboard for the iPad, but are really put off by that massive price tag that apple stuck on it.

So I've gone with them. I've recommended them quite a bit, so I was really stoked when I found out that they were releasing an updated version of their iPad Pro keyboard with really two massive changes, one they were ditching their hinges. I mean, if you followed bridge, you know, their hinges are like their thing. Like those things, that's like what they're known for so to ditch those big deal, the other massive change is a massive trackpad. They are dropping a huge trackpad onto their latest device.

So a lot of reasons to get excited, I mean those are the two biggest things. There are a few other changes as well in there uh. So I got a mole inside a bridge to sneak out an advanced unit. I'm kidding. That's you guys know.

That's a bunch of BS bridge just sent me one to show off to you guys ahead of time and uh. You know we're gonna, give you guys an honest look at this new device. I am pretty, pretty excited by this, because this is literally like this is a MacBook Pro? It's like a 13-inch MacBook Pro come on. Look at the size of this trackpad. Can you not be excited by this? It's an aluminum body, massive glass trackpad here like this, is legit some cool stuff to get excited about.

So we're going to dig in we're. Gonna talk about this guy uh yeah. So this is it your first look at the bridge: uh 12.9 max, plus bridge keyboard, trackpad, combo guy. Let's check it out so to clear things up. First, this is not a production level unit.

This is a know, engineering, verification test unit, not a real device, and there are a few changes that can be on here compared to what you guys would get if you went and ordered one there's a couple like minor things like there's gonna, be like the bridge logo stamped on the back of this um. It's going to be a little lighter than it is now and the one that I'm using, and it's a little more rigid, there's kind of a little of a slushiness in the middle of the keyboard uh just from what's in the core of this thing, and the final production units are going to clear all those issues up, so I did just them. I do want to mention them to you that I saw them here in this unit that I'm testing, but uh they're not going to be in the final product, but as far as what you know is legit and what's real is as everything else, and this thing is fantastic to use a giant trackpad like this on an iPad is sublime. It makes things so much easier and there's like a lot of different things where I get even frustrated with apple's magic keyboard, because it's a little of a smaller trackpad, it's a little tight, and I'm used to apple's. You know giant brick of a trackpad, it has for the mac and even what they have uh you know on their MacBook pros are huge.

It feels cramped on the iPad bridges pro plus models and apple's model. They feel a little cramped when I'm trying to like drag and drop is a good example. I have files open in one spot and like a photo editor or something open, the other I'm trying to drag files in between, and I'm kind of, like. I move my stuff to the side and I don't have enough space to hit the edge of the trackpad, and I ran to issues like that kind of on a regular basis, and man are those not issues at all with a tracked head, this size uh, it's just. It's truly lovely a few other things just to note, so it is a multi-touch trackpad.

So it's big gorgeous. You can use multiple fingers, so you can pinch, pool zoom, rotate, all that kind of cool stuff that you can do with multi-touch thanks to uh. You know the recent updates to bridge and things apple's done with iOS, like just all, perfect changes that have improved this experience. Now it does connect still over Bluetooth. So that's still the same and honestly there's still just these times, where there's a little of lag in the cursor, it's so much better than it was before.

But when you saw my hands-on with a new beta bridge firmware, you could see how smooth it was, and I'm still seeing that here I mean it's its generally much smoother than it was it's totally usable more than usable uh. It's perfect, but there's like a couple of times when, like stagger a little just really minor kind of fluctuations like that, and I feel like that's kind of like a third party versus a first party solution. You know apple can just make their stuff super smooth, but they're also doing over hardware connection versus Bluetooth and doing this with a Bluetooth connection and on iPadOS is just this is about as good as I have seen it get from any uh. Your third party product for the iPad typing on here is pretty smooth. It's the same general kind of feel in the keys I do notice.

I think these are a little clicker, a little clicker than the normal bridge keys. There's a little more of a tactile like snap at the bottom, like you can feel where it's like kind of connecting and clicking uh. It feels more pronounced in this, this new max version than the other bridge keyboards. So I'm not certain if anything has really changed there, but it feels a little snappier on those clicks. So I do prefer the feel of this guy compared to previous versions of the bridge.

Keyboards that I've used a bunch of the bridge stuff is usually here. So you got USB on the side to charge this thing up. Uh it has backlit keys. You can adjust the brightness there's like the keys right there on your uh. The keyboard like the shortcut function, key function row at the top, so you guys can use those um there's.

Also, this really neat feature. This is a really slick thing that they did so one of the early problems. The bridge keyboards was you'd, go to try to wake them up after even like a few minutes, and you'd have to like double tap the keyboard because they have one to wake it, and they had to connect, and the second one would like to wake your iPad kind of weird stuff like that, this guy it almost just stays like this all the time. It's almost like perpetually connected, and I guess, there's like a four-hour window where it puts the keyboard into this ultra low power state but still keeps an active connection with your iPad. So, as you uh, you know, put your iPad to sleep.

It's sitting on your desk. You go to lunch or something you come back. This is still connected, so I can just tap the trackpad or the keyboard once, and it just wakes up and springs to life. So it's a huge improvement over what we saw before, and I guess this is also coming to the 10.2 max keyboard, the one for just like the standard iPad. So that feature is coming to that one as well, but I really like it, I really dig.

It definitely makes a big difference when using this thing, one of my biggest annoyances with the Bluetooth product versus something that is actually hardwired in using the smart connector. So let's talk about the hinge and the new design here, there's a few changes, obviously compared to regular bridge keyboard. So you can see we have this back cover before they had a back cover and just magnetically connected. But now it's like legit part of the thing itself, it's the actual hinge, and it creates a much more polished finished full. You know one product and I also like this look just two fingers and I can lift it up boom.

It's almost like a flipping MacBook. I mean it's really cool how nice and smooth that is like again we're just going to close it like a mac, just fingers on the side. There's like these little lips that come out, and I can grab them open it up and just pull forward. Now the balance isn't as perfect as apples where I can like just hold it one hand or one finger and lift it, but it's still smooth enough that I can easily lift it up and go, so it's really cool that way and because of those like little lips on the side. That's how you can remove your iPad too.

So I can just push forward with the thumb on the lip and pull forward with my iPad on the other, and it separates the two and there we go and my iPad's free- and I did that one-handed like not not an issue, guys one-handed, and I can put the bottom in and put it back there. We go magnetically in place and, of course, goes to sleep automatically when I close it so some cool stuff. Here I really like this new hinge. It's much sleeker, smoother, there are no bumps or lumps that you're going to find like in your bag that we saw, like you, know the regular bridge keyboard. So I definitely prefer this new hinge style than the other one.

That said, it does give a little more. You know thickness to the overall package because you have this extra plate along the back, so a little more thickness to your iPad Pro when it is mounted here, but otherwise this is the closest I've ever seen this guy get to a legit. You know MacBook Pro. This is about you, what you're going to get? If you try to do a lot of work on your iPad, if you want to be as productive as possible, it's really helpful to have a trackpad on your device. This is probably the coolest trackpad I've seen yet for the iPad, even cooler than apples, because of how large this thing truly is.

Yes, there are a couple like you know, nagging Bluetooth issues, but they keep getting cleared up. Bridge has been pushing out. You know continuous updates to its beta uh for existing pro plus users, and for this guy I mean this, isn't even shipping, yet this ships soon, and it's already super smooth. So I cannot wait to see what bridge does and any changes. You know iPadOS they're just going to make any of these experiences even better for you.

So if you guys want to grab one they're going to be up for pre-order soon, they may be up already. I don't know uh, but if you want, of course, I put the link down below in the description so check it out, and then let me know what you guys think over on Twitter at Andrew underscore OSU. Do you prefer the magic keyboard, or are you going to check out the bridge pro or the bridge? I can't even think of my names, guys the bridge 10.2 max. This is for the 12.9 and iPad Pro. So remember that, but the 11 inch is coming.

Don't comment me: the leverage is coming their launching with a 12.9 first, the bridge 12.9 max plus keyboard trackpad combo for the iPad Pro. Let me know what you guys think and uh I'll see you guys next video, you.

Source : AppleInsider