Ugh. That was my first reaction to the CruxSKUNK, a case which turns the iPad into a laptop-shaped-object. Then I got onto the name, which is equally clunky. Then I saw the price, which appears to be around $155-$250. Oh, and this case? It comes with its own case. Nice.
Using the iPad with a keyboard is great. Pretty much any USB or Bluetooth keyboard integrates nicely, and some even have iO-specific keys (although dedicated copy/cut/paste keys are a waste of three keys).
But why the hell would you want to pretend your iPad is a laptop? These cases (and we have seen a few of them before) add bulk and little else.
Still, if you insist on going this route, then the CruxSKUNK looks to be the best of the bunch. It’s milled from aluminum, like the iPad itself, and has a neat rotating hinge so you can flip the iPad around and have it lie face-up on top of the keyboard. In this manner you can mimic the look and feel of an old 1990s-era tablet PC.
What else? Well, like every other keyboard case, it omits keys for controlling brightness. It also claims to have a full-sized QWERTY keyboard, but as the case is the size of an iPad, and the full-sized QWERTY keyboard I’m typing on right now is bigger than an iPad, I’m not so sure.
Finally, the CruxSKUNK (which really is the worst product name I ever heard) comes with a leather case, adding bulk and weight to the whole shebang.
And the price? It’s a Kickstarter project, so if you pitch in now you can get one for as “little” as $155. Amazingly, it is almost funded with well over a month to go. There must be a lot of iPad owners out there who really wish they’d bought an underpowered MacBook Air instead.