Folding, full-size keyboard won’t hog bag space [Reviews]

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iClever trifold keyboard
iClever's compact keyboard will almost fit in your pocket -- if you don't mind walking funny.
Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

iClever Tri-folding Keyboard

We’re always looking for ways to take our tech on the go without filling up our limited bag space, and we’ve found a pretty great solution to both in this handy and compact keyboard. It connects either wirelessly (via Bluetooth) or with an included USB cable, and it’s comparable in size to the standard keyboard on our MacBook Pro. But that isn’t even the best part.

The really cool bit is that iClever’s gadget folds up when you’re done with it, and it reduces its size almost by half. It’s kind of ridiculous, but that’s not at all a complaint.

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If you want some actual numbers here, the iClever tri-folding keyboard is about 11 and a quarter inches by four and a half inches full-size, and folding it up reduces its width to about six and a half inches. And it’s only about a half inch thick when it’s ready for storage, so you shouldn’t have any trouble slipping it into your bag when you’re on the go.

And typing on this thing feels great. I could tell no real difference between it and the MacBook keyboard I use every day, and the keys are responsive and offer the right amount of resistance.

Better still, if you’re the kind of person who’s gotten used to getting a bunch of work done with a sandwich in one hand, iClever‘s device doesn’t have very many places for crumbs to fall in. It reveals a few tiny gaps along the bottom and sides of most keys and also at the seams where it folds up, but the buttons don’t “float” above the board as much as some other keyboards we’ve seen, and it’s small and light enough that you could knock out debris with a good shaking.

And that’s especially good news considering that the iClever keyboard also has a backlight for those times you want to feel especially futuristic. The last backlit keyboard we used collected more crumbs than the tray at the bottom of a toaster, and eventually we just had to pop off all of the keys and take a vacuum to it. But this one doesn’t look like it’ll have that problem.

You can choose between red, blue and green lights and two brightness levels, and using it will greatly affect its battery life, but it looks completely cool.

All told, we’re very impressed with this keyboard. It’s wowed everyone we’ve shown it to, and it’s a blast to use. It might even team up with our iPads to be a worthwhile replacement for our laptops when we travel.

The iClever Tri-folding Keyboard is currently available for $35.99 on Amazon (MSRP $99.99). iClever provided Cult of Mac with a unit for this review.

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