Zagg Mate - Preliminary Review

Well, I finally got the Zagg-Mate case for the iPad and I'm finally trying things out. I pre-ordered it as soon as I was able to. It is a smaller and tighter keyboard than I'm really used to, but I can't complain too much. I'm sure with a little bit of practice I'll be almost as fast with this as a normal keyboard.The one thing I noticed is that the film on the back of the iPad has turned BLUE from the stock Apple case for it. To say it's kinda strange looking is an understatement. But the back of the case is just fine regardless. Zagg is going to ship out a replacement set for me anyway so it's all cool.From using this for the past five minutes I can see how this is a great addition to the iPad and it'll let me use this much more like a normal computer. Not having the virtual keyboard take up space is a massive improvement from before. Right now I'm using BlogPress to write up the blog entry and all I see is the text I'm entering in. On top of that I have access to all the normal keys, modifiers, numbers and arrow keys. It makes the iPad rock like never before.All in all I think this makes a great addition to the overall iPad workflow that I have going on here. I'm looking forward to bringing this on future trips and to handle my blogging needs. This is very likely going to replace the netbook on trips that we go on. The combination of having plain ambient internet and a real keyboard (and a nice screen to boot) is simply a killer app. Coupled with the new task switching and you have a real winner!

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