Mini-review: Logitech’s Create is the iPad Pro keyboard case you really want

I received an iPad Pro early last week, and, throughout that week and into the weekend, I primarily used Apple’s Smart Keyboard to “dock” the tablet. As I said in our review, I liked it well enough—the feel of the keyboard is easy to get used to if you don’t absolutely hate the new low-travel switch mechanism and layout Apple introduced in the Retina MacBook. I could wish that the stand part of the cover allowed you to tilt the screen at more than one angle, but it was perfectly usable.

If you don’t care for the Smart Keyboard, the good news is that third-party accessory makers can use the Smart Connector (smart, smart, everything’s smart) the same way Apple can. Logitech was able to get me its new $150 Create keyboard case for the iPad Pro on Monday, and I quickly started using it exclusively and left the Smart Keyboard behind. It’s still got problems, but if you’re coming at the iPad Pro from a MacBook Air or Pro, the Create’s typing experience is going to make you a whole lot happier.

Almost everything the Smart Keyboard does well, it also does well

The Smart Keyboard accomplishes a few things aside from “being a keyboard.” It provides a surprisingly stable surface for the tablet on your lap, it props the screen up, it uses the Smart Connector to get around pairing and charging, and it protects the front of the tablet when you’re not using it. The Create keyboard does all of this, too.

Now, the flip side of this is that there are some shortcomings that the Smart Keyboard has that the Create also has—most notably and frustratingly, it can still only prop the screen open at one angle. We’ll have to wait for someone else to solve this problem. The one nice feature the Smart Keyboard offers that Logitech’s doesn’t is water resistance, but most of you will be used to keeping water away from your keyboards already.

And there are many areas where it improves

Logitech is really good at making Apple-y chiclet keyboards, and both the layout and the function of the Create case are dead ringers for Apple’s familiar MacBook Air and Pro keyboard. For starters, it has a bright, even backlight that the Smart Keyboard lacks. It also comes in colors that are actually matched to the iPads—black and gray to match the space gray iPad, red and gold to match the gold finish, and silver and blue to match the silver finish. Our review unit is the black and gray option, which obviously doesn’t match our silver iPad, but obviously you’ll be able to pick your own colors for yourselves.

The layout restores the half-height arrow key layout that Apple removed from the MacBook and Smart Keyboard in favor of half-height up-and-down buttons and full-height left-and-right buttons. It also restores the row of function keys, which do the things you’d expect plus a handful of other iOS-specific actions. You can adjust screen brightness and volume; play, pause, and skip tracks; adjust volume; and adjust the brightness of the backlit keyboard. There are dedicated buttons for Home, pulling up Spotlight, for locking the tablet, and for bringing up alternate software keyboards (Emoji, usually, but other languages, too). And a button in the lower-left of the keyboard where the function key would normally be can be used to show and hide the software keyboard for the rare instances where it might actually be more convenient.

Key size, spacing, and travel feel near-identical to my MacBook Air, so anyone switching from a current Mac keyboard or one of the better PC Ultrabook keyboards will feel right at home. You can get used to the Smart Keyboard; you won’t have to get used to Logitech’s.

Another nice touch is that the Create has a small, raised palmrest area, nothing huge but enough to rest your hands on as you type. Even more than the key action, this made the iPad Pro typing experience much better for me—in this state it’s enough like a Mac that I actually had to stop myself from reaching for a trackpad that wasn’t there.

It offers extra protection, and it does it for less

The Smart Keyboard will give your screen the same amount of protection as a traditional Smart Cover but won’t do anything for the back of your tablet (or provide a whole lot of protection if you drop it, for that matter). Apple sells a silicone case for the back of the iPad that fits together with the Smart Keyboard (or Smart Cover) to protect the back of the tablet, but it costs another $79 on top of the $169 you spent on the keyboard in the first place. The Create gives you protection plus a keyboard for less than the cost of Apple’s keyboard by itself, even if objectively it’s still fairly pricey.

The downside is that the Create is quite a bit bulkier than either the Smart Keyboard by itself or the Smart-Keyboard-plus-silicone-case combo. It’s going to double the weight of the iPad Pro all by itself (it weighs 725g to the iPad’s 713 or 723g), and it’s going to roughly triple its thickness. This doesn’t make the iPad Pro a behemoth (it only weighs a little over three pounds with the case on), but it’s more than Apple’s accessories add.

It also makes the volume and power buttons just a bit harder to press. They’re all buried under rubber and plastic (there are cutouts for all the ports, the camera, the speakers, and the mics, but not for the buttons), so you have to press them through the material of the case. For the volume buttons especially, this takes some effort.

Like we said in our review, the barriers that will keep the iPad Pro from actually replacing a laptop are mostly present in iOS and not in the iPad Pro’s hardware. But if you can live with iOS (or if you’re confident that Apple and app developers will eventually address its shortcomings for you) and you just want a more Mac-like keyboard for it, the Logitech Create is a solid choice.

Listing image by Andrew Cunningham