Boxwave Keyboard Buddy case: When a virtual keyboard isn't enough
Although I'm personally very comfortable with typing on the iPhone's virtual keyboard - especially on the iPhone 6 Plus - there are some people who just loved the old pre-iPhone "smartphones" with the little slideout keyboards. If you count yourself among that crowd and want a "real" keyboard for your iPhone 6, then you'll be happy to hear about the Boxwave Keyboard Buddy Case (US$89.95, on special for $79.95). For the rest of you, I recommend staying away from this expensive gimmick.
Specifications
Dimensions: 5.5 x 2.2 x .68 inches (13.97 x 5.59 x 1.73 cm)
Weight: 3.2 ounces (90.7 grams)
Includes built-in backlight, micro-USB charge cable
Design
The Keyboard Buddy Case consists of a rather plain black case with a slideout Bluetooth keyboard. That keyboard is really designed for thumb typing in landscape orientation, and I frankly found the case for the iPhone 6 to be just too wide for my thumbs to reach the center (g,h,t,y,b,n) keys and almost too wide to reach the space bar.
The case is wider than the keyboard - there's about a half-inch of space on either side. On the right side of the keyboard, that space is taken up with three LEDs; a blue one to signify Bluetooth, a green one to signify that the battery is charged and that the device is powered up, and one that glows red during charging.
Fan of diminutive keyboards who use their iPhones in the dark a lot (you'd better not be texting in movie theaters, just sayin'), you'll be thrilled to know that there's a backlight built in.
The keyboard has a strange blockish shape, and includes fn, shift, alt, and command keys, as well as a home key and a set of arrow keys. The fn key serves to bring up all sorts of special features in addition to the number keys.
Functionality
The Keyboard Buddy Case is easy to set up - place the iPhone 6 in the case, press the Home and Fn buttons simultaneously to put the keyboard into pairing mode, then type a 4-digit pairing code into the keyboard when prompted by the iPhone.
The battery life for the keyboard is listed as two weeks, but that may not take into account using the backlight.
I found this keyboard to be just about unusable, but your mileage may vary depending on how you hold slide-out keyboards and whether you find pushing tiny little keys with almost no play to be your preferred method of typing on a smartphone. I don't.
Conclusion
The Boxwave Keyboard Buddy Case for iPhone 6 will probably be popular with those who just can't give up their BlackBerry or Sidekick. For use with an iPhone 6, I recommend the very usable iWerkz Universal Foldable Bluetooth Keyboard or the recently-reviewed Logitech Keys-To-Go keyboard.
Either one has much longer battery life and if you actually want to type quickly and accurately, you'll spend the money to get a real portable Bluetooth keyboard. Finally, the price on this is ridiculously high - especially when you consider that the top-rated Logitech Keys-To-Go is actually $20 less expensive and the iWerkz sells for $35 or less!
Rating: 1 star out of 4 stars possible.
