CruxENCORE, A Laptop-Emulating Case For The iPad Air

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Just as our own Charlie Sorrel was puzzled by CruxCase’s first turn-your-iPad-into-a-MacBook keyboard-case when it arrived in 2012, I too am not exactly won over by the idea — I’m just not sure I’d ever want to bulk out an iPad by entombing it in a massive aluminum slab.

Besides the name — the new model, CruxENCORE, sounds like a more solid marketing decision than the first case’s name, CruxSKUNK — and the fact that the new case is designed for the iPad Air, the general idea remains the same. Like the original, the CruxENCORE, with its aluminum casing and full-sized chiclet-style keyboard, emulates a MacBook’s clamshell-style ergonomics — right down to the large hand-wrest islands just fore of the keyboard.

The CruxENCORE can do things that no MacBook can do, though; similar to these iHome cases we saw a few months back at CES, the CruxENCORE can twist and turn the screen — in this case, your embedded iPad Air — a full 360 degrees, and will also allow the screen to be laid flat against the back of the other side of the case. Though it’s unfortunate the case doesn’t come with backlit keys.

If converting an iPad into a laptop makes your mouth water, this is probably one of the cleaner, more stylish methods of achieving the effect. Right now the case is only available on Kickstarter, and as of this post there are still a bunch left at the $89; the price pops up to $199 when the Kickstarter campaign ends in just under a week.

Source: Kickstarter

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