Review: Brydge Air for iPad Air and iPad Air 2

So the keyboard is good, and outside of a few lost characters, the typing experience offers much the same hard click you’ll get from a full-size keyboard.

It is a fairly hard keyboard, that said, but Apple customers are probably used to this style of keyboard, so it’s not far off with the sort of travel and click you get out of an Apple desktop keyboard, either.

But the speaker system is so far off the mark, you’d do yourself a favour not to even consider it.

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It needs to be said that the speakers in the Apple iPad Air 2 aren’t bad as they are. Granted, they’re on the bottom and not facing your skull, so the audio is never really doing at you, but at least the sound quality is good.

Unfortunately, the Brydge Air doesn’t really do anything to rectify this issue, as its speakers are on its rear edge, and they’re not even that good.

To even use them, you need to pair the iPad with the keyboard’s speaker system. You might already have the Bluetooth keyboard paired, but that’s merely one part of the package, and for the speakers to work, you’ll need them too.

We need to note that this sound system isn’t designed by Apple, nor is it designed by any manufacturer we know about, and the result is pretty clear: shallow, tinny, mediocre sound that appears to be more the sort you’d find on a cheap Bluetooth speaker for a phone than anything you’d intentionally replace the decent audio on the iPad with.

The speakers aren’t even aimed in the right location, bouncing off the glass of the iPad almost immediately.

If the speakers were at least good, they should be either aimed at you or sitting facing up near the keyboard, but none of this is true. Instead, they just fall flat.

When the iPad is open and connected to the Brydge Air, the keyboard case speakers are masked by the iPad.
When the iPad is open and connected to the Brydge Air, the keyboard case speakers are masked by the iPad.

And occasionally, depending on how you hold the Brydge Air, the same might be true of your iPad.

That is possibly the ultimate worst case scenario for an owner of the iPad, and yet the Brydge occasionally makes it happen, something we think falls into place because of the way the Brydge connects to the iPad Air and Air 2.

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Most keyboard cases tend to rely on a casing of some sort, possibly a wraparound bit of plastic which keeps the tablet in place, but Brydge believes its rubberised claw on each side is a better option, allowing you to slip the tablet in and out for when you don’t want to use it, while holding tightly when used as a keyboard.

You can even collapse the keyboard case and carry it around connected, which is probably what Brydge wants you to do, since the buttons on the edge of its case (for switching on the keyboard and controlling that Bluetooth speaker volume).

But be warned: the grip of the tablet between the keyboard case and the iPad Air 2 isn’t as grippy as you might think.

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In fact, you really just need to hold the iPad by the keyboard section to see just how loose the grip is, watching the tablet gradually slip away and fall out from the keyboard section. Even if you grip it properly with your hand holding both sections, if you push a little with your thumb and move the tablet from the claw grip, it will lose the hold and slide along.

And that leads you to the biggest problem with the Brydge: the grip just isn’t a great way of holding the iPad.

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We’ve touched upon it briefly when we explained how the grips connect to the tablet, but this constant alignment is something you’ll be doing on a regular basis, and while you can just slide the tablet in, it probably won’t always be perfectly aligned.

This makes the Brydge Air a fairly manual accessory, one pushed on by your hands, with the iPad seemingly going out of alignment when you close the tablet case up.

What Brydge has made isn’t without merit, that said, because a totally different interpretation of an iPad being turned into a makeshift computer is welcome, though it’s one that we’d like to see a second generation of.

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Conclusion

There is certainly no shortage of keyboard cases for the iPad Air and iPad Air 2, and Brydge’s case just adds to this pile, providing more keys for what would otherwise be a content consumption tablet.

The question of if Brydge brings anything new to the table is a bit of a complicated one, because outside of mediocre speakers, the answer is probably “no”.

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What Brydge has done, however, is make things a little differently, and make them for people who don’t necessarily want to commit to leaving their tablet in a keyboard case.

Do you use the keyboard only sparingly and prefer to watch movies, sliding the tablet out when you need it? And do you prefer metal to plastic?

If you answered either of those with a glowing “yes”, you’ll want to find Brydge’s keyboard case, because it feels made for you more than anyone else.

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Overall
Features
Value for money
Performance
Ease of Use
Design
Reader Rating0 Votes
Well made; Keys offer a solid click; Keyboard is pretty close in design to the Apple keyboard;
Some keystrokes appear to go missing, usually after not typing for a few minutes or selecting a new cursor point; On-board speakers are terrible, and aimed right at the iPad which doesn't help make them sound any better; Tablet holders lose grip gradually, forcing you to shift the iPad back into position;
3.4