review: WIWU 11" iPad Pro Keyboard case

 For the last many years I have almost always had a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad to make typing easier. I had one for the standard iPad and it was pretty nice and was part of the case. It had to be flipped out of the way if you weren't using it and that was a little sketchy, making it easier for the keys to be broken and wasn't comfortable to hold. After that I had separate keyboards I could set up in front of the screen separately. Sadly, the last keyboard I was using was cheap, fragile and hard to use. With the 11" iPad Pro now more powerful and having more professional apps on it like the Affinity suite and Davinci Resolve it is closer than ever than becoming a laptop replacement for me and I felt I needed a better keyboard option. 

With that in mind I bought this WiWu case/keyboard. The reviews were good, the price, about 100$CAD was in the range I could afford and the key set up very close to the keyboard that came with my iMac and included a track pad like my Pro laptop. 

Pros:

• The keyboard attacks magnetically and can come off if you don't need it. 
• The trackpad isn't bad at all.
• It is very sturdy the stand allows for many positions including, portrait which is great for video chats. 
• The keys light up, a gimmick for sure (you can change the colour) but it's cool looking and helps if I am typing in a dark place. 
• It works like the keyboard on the iMac so I don't have to know weird FN key combos to do normal functions. 
• Its solid but soft and should last awhile.

Cons:

• The placement of the apple pencil is badly thought out. It had slot for it, but that slot doesn't give it contact with the charging side of the device so you have to move it to the other side to charge. The plastic on the charging side, even thought it is supposedly made to allow charging..... blocks it instead with thinner strip of plastic where the pen would charge but not thin enough to allow the current to pass through.  I had to cut out a space to allow the Pencil to touch the metal charging area. (See image below.) Doing this does not seem to weaken the case. 
• 
  It's a little heavy but as it's so solid, that doesn't bug me. 
• There is no way to know how much charge is left on it. There IS a button on it that indicates that function should be there but it doesn't do anything and if you look at the Bluetooth devices, it doesn't show up on the widget that lets you know how much energy they have left. It will blink shortly before dying but that is not really an acceptable solution for a modern device. 

Overall:

I do like it quite a bit. It works well typing is comfortable and the stand in back is the best I have used so far. Between the track pad and the Apple Pencil I shouldn't need a mouse anymore. I have been a little scared to go without that but it's just me being overly cautious, I think. I also bought a new glass protective screen cover that including a piece that protects the camera in back. The Apple Pencil stuff is annoying but not a deal breaker for the price. My goal is to not have to take a laptop with me on trips from the studio. I can draw, do all my graphic design and photo processing, writing and more now. The restriction on my work are no 3D animation software and Apple needs a better font handling, none of which has anything to do with the new case. So hardware wise, this gets me where I want to be for a third less the price than an Apple Magic Keyboard would be.