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Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard review: An ultra-thin and versatile keyboard for your iPad or iPhone

The iPad accessory market is full of keyboards. Most of them double up as cases, they’re about as big as the iPad and they’re not well optimized for other devices. The Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard is different. It’s small enough to carry around in your pocket when folded, and works with iOS, Windows and Android devices. What’s more, you can have it paired to two devices at once and switch between them with the press of a button. It’s safe to say that this is one of the most versatile and portable Bluetooth keyboards on the market. This review was written entirely on it.

When closed, the keyboard measures just 147.6mm wide, 125.3mm high and 11.5mm thin. It should comfortably slip into a coat pocket, or in the back pocket of your pants and will easily hide inside a bag or purse. When open, it’s 295.1mm wide, roughly the width of an Apple Wireless Keyboard, and thinner than an iPhone 6. Apart from the keys, the entire keyboard is covered and sealed inside a durable, flexible and splash-proof material. Although it’s not certified as waterproof, it’s designed to handle the odd accidental spillage here and there. It’s lightweight and designed not to draw attention to itself. There’s no catch, faster or band to keep the keyboard shut. Instead, Microsoft went with embedded magnets to ensure it stays closed when you want it to be.

It’s a 6-row keyboard with full-size keys and bespoke control buttons for each supported platform. It has volume and music controls, a lock key and home button which all do what you’d expect them to on iOS. What’s more, there’s a search button that launches Spotlight search.  The battery inside lasts so long, it’s almost as if it’s powered by magic. It’s only when the Lithium-ion battery inside dies (after three months of use) that you’re reminded it’s not magical, and you have to go routing around for a Micro USB cable to plug it in.

Setting up is easy; opening the keyboard powers it on, closing it switches it off. Since there are two Bluetooth channels, each has its own pairing button on the top row, to the right of the Escape key. Select channel ‘1’ or ‘2’. On the far right of the top row of keys is the OS-switching key. Just above it are three small backlit platform logos. Press the OS-switching button until the iPad/iPhone symbol is lit up and go through the usual Bluetooth pairing procedure in the Settings app. To set up a second device, go through the process again, but select the other channel. Once you have two devices paired, regardless of which platform they are, you can switch between them just by pressing one of the channel buttons. It’s really useful and quick, especially if you like to get work done on your phone and tablet.

To begin with, typing was a challenge. Because of the foldable design, each side of the keyboard is separated from the other by the fold through the middle which is essentially wide enough that you could fit another column of keys in. If you’re a touch typist, this keyboard will confuse you to begin with. For one, I realized that I always use the index finger on my right hand to hit the ‘B’ key. Whenever I had to type a word with a ‘b’ in it, I’d almost without fail end up fingering the ravine in between the two sides of the Microsoft keyboard. That, or pressing ‘N’ instead. This isn’t helped by the fact that the ‘N’ is twice the size of a usual key, as are the ‘T’ and ‘G’ keys.

What’s more, typing on it isn’t exactly satisfying to the senses. As expected from a keyboard this slim, there’s very little travel when pressing the keys. There’s nowhere for the keys to travel to. There’s no click to please the ears either, and the keys are packed so close together, I often found my fingers tripping over the wrong keys. If the typing experience is of paramount importance to you, you’re not going to like it at all. Saying that, once I’d used it for a few hours, I got accustomed to the way it felt under my fingers.

It’s the portability of the keyboard that really won me over. Enough to make me forget my complaints about typing on it. If I’m ever on the move, I like to travel as light as I can. Anything that can be left behind, is. The more space I can save, the better. The Universal Foldable Keyboard barely takes up any room, doesn’t weigh anything, but is always ready just in case I need to get something typed up while I’m on the go. I don’t need a bulky case attached to my iPad.

You can buy the Universal Foldable Keyboard direct from Microsoft for $99.95 (£99 in the UK) or on Amazon for $74.99. If you want something reliable to type on that just fits in your pocket or purse, you’ll struggle to find much better than this.

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Comments

  1. Does it have built-in keylogger, like the OS they released recently?

  2. ByteEngine - 9 years ago

    Doesn’t have inverted-T arrow keys? NON-STARTER.

  3. jameskatt - 9 years ago

    The Perixx 805 Folding Bluetooth keyboard is superior to this Microsoft keyboard and costs only $30.

    • telecastle - 9 years ago

      I looked at the Perixx 805 keyboard on Amazon, and it doesn’t really look like a high-quality product. Additionally, the keyboard layout printed on it is not American – the letters are in different places, and especially the fact that B is located on the right side of the fold would deter me from using it even if you are a touch typist because you are supposed to hit B with your left hand.

      • You are aware aren’t you that about 96% of the world population isn’t American, and that in reality the world doesn’t revolve around the 4% that actually are?

    • Jonny - 9 years ago

      Define superior? If you mean, ‘my preference’, then sure, to each their own. That Perixx keyboard (or at least the one I pulled up on Amazon with that model number) only has 2-3 days of battery life, doesn’t toggle between two devices, doesn’t appear to have the same iOS system support (based on the Amazon reviews… I’ve found it’s hit or miss with most bluetooth keyboards), does not have BTLE, and is both larger and heavier. If those are not important things to you, then yeah, the Perrix keyboard might be better suited for you.

  4. CV (@jonews45) - 9 years ago

    How does this compare in key travel and general feel to the Logitech Keys-To-Go keyboard?

  5. telecastle - 9 years ago

    There are more keys on this keyboard are are wider than usual. T, G, N, H, 7. I wish MS would just make the keys the same size because the center of these five keys is now shifted, so even if you hit them where you expect the center to be when touch typing, they key will probably not make a good contact, and thus sometimes these characters will be missed.

    On the other hand the author’s complaint that B is on the wrong side of the fold is not valid. B should be hit with the left hand. If the author hits B with the right hand, it means the author failed to properly learn touch typing – at least the way touch typing is done on the American QWERTY keyboard.

    • Cam Bunton - 9 years ago

      I didn’t say it was on the wrong side. I’ve learned plenty of bad typing habits. This is one of them.

  6. Raphael Freeman - 9 years ago

    Did you try it with iOS 9 beta? If so, does the enter key hit send on iMessage (it does finally work on the Apple wireless keyboard).

  7. kijijigod - 9 years ago

    Oh no, we will have to endure endless talk about this keyboard on every podcast Andy Ihnatko does for the next quarter.

  8. shareef777 - 9 years ago

    This is the exact keyboard as the Surface 3 Type Cover. Works very well with my Surface and I really like how thin it is, yet still has a good feel (in regards to key travel). It’s what I imagine the new MacBook keyboards are similar to. While it’s a nice keyboard, seems a bit expensive for the price. At $100 the Type Cover includes a mouse and is backlit. Losing the mouse and backlit feature should save more then $25.

  9. Joseph Yu - 8 years ago

    How do I switch languages? iPhone allows me to switch between 3-4 languages, but once locked with this keyboard the switching function disappears

  10. Sheila Rada - 7 years ago

    When typing and you need to use the Shift, some of the characters don’t come out right and because of that I can’t type the following characters – “!”, “@”, “#”, “$”, “%”, How can this be corrected?