Logitech has introduced the US$129.99 Fold-Up Keyboard, a full-sized comfortable Bluetooth keyboard that protects your iPad 2 as well.The keyboard features pretty much all of the keys in the places that you’d expect to find them on the Apple Wireless Keyboard. Rather than a separate row of function keys, however, the fn key works with the number row of the Fold-Up Keyboard to provide iPad-specific functions. Those functions are home, search, slideshow, toggle onscreen keyboard on/off, rewind, play/pause, fast-forward, three volume buttons (mute, middle, loud), and enable lock screen. There’s only one button on the keyboard that is used to put it into discoverable mode for Bluetooth pairing. Three tiny LEDs near that button indicate that the keyboard is charging or has a low battery, that the keyboard is pairing with an iPad, and that the keyboard is in caps lock mode. Logitech includes a standard USB to micro-USB cable for charging. The keyboard takes about three hours to charge, but lasts for about 500 hours of typing. No AC adapter is included, which means that you either need to use your iPad’s adapter or another USB adapter for charging.
When the iPad is in the “locked and upright position” in the Fold-Up Keyboard case, the entire assembly is surprisingly rigid. That makes it quite easy to use the Fold-Up Keyboard and an iPad 2 as a pseudo-laptop without a desk.
