Zagg Pro Keyboard 12 Review: A Good Keyboard That Could be Great

Zagg Pro Keyboard 12  Review

Every keyboard takes some getting used to. Touch typing requires muscle memory, and when keys move, that memory needs to be updated. And it’s truer than ever with the variety of compact keyboards that force fingers more tightly together and also move many of the functions and features into function keys or to new keys, for which the brain hasn’t yet mapped anything.

Such is the case with $69.99 Zagg Pro Keyboard 12, a perfectly adequate compact keyboard with a unique set of talents like Qi-compatible charging. I’m finding more than my usual number of keystroke miscues as I type this—over time, that will improve as my brain remaps to the Zagg Pro Keyboard 12. Between keyboards and wireless headset touch controls, analysts and reviewers spend a lot of time remapping their brains.

What we like

Pros

• Compact
• Pairs up to three devices from any OS that supports Bluetooth®
• Long battery life
• Qi charging
• 10% post-industrial recycled materials

The 12-inch by 5.5-inch keyboard compresses keys into a space roughly the size of the 14-inch Apple MacBook Pro’s keyboard, which isn’t an uncomfortable compromise, as the excellent Apple keyboard attests. Zagg, however, features much higher profile keys with more travel and a rounded key design that separates the keys from one another more than Apple’s keyboard.

And, of course, Zagg includes keys Apple doesn’t need, like a trio of Bluetooth connection keys.

The typing experience is OK, but I do find the space bar doesn’t always move the cursor along with every hit. That could just be me getting used to the key travel, or it could be the space bar isn’t as sensitive as it could be—which goes back to me getting used to the properties of the keyboard.

Battery life is good. The Zagg Pro Keyboard 12 comes outfitted with a battery that supports up to three months of use at an hour a day. I recharge mine more frequently, with over eight hours of use per day. Keep an eye on the battery level or just occasionally sit the keyboard on a Qi charge and top it off.

Zagg continues to improve its sustainability credibility with a basic printed cardboard box and a keyboard made of 10% post-industrial recycled material.

What could be improved

Cons

• Power switch
• Profile too low
• No backlighting
• Misleading colors
• Not really a portable

I would like a power switch that is clearly a power switch. The “del” key does double duty as the power button. I’m never sure if the keyboard is on or off. Alternatively, a power indicator LED could tell you its current status.

I would also like some feet. Mine now has feet as I purchased large rubber sticky feet from Amazon and stuck them on the bottom of the keyboard to increase the typing angle. Typing feels more comfortable with the feet. A pair of old-school fold-out feet (good ones, not the ones that break easily) would be appreciated, I think, by content creators beyond just me.

I work in a pretty dark space by choice. The lack of backlighting stops the Zagg Pro Keyboard 12 from being a regular member of my content creation team. While evaluating the keyboard I swapped it out with my Cherry Mac keyboard, but at least that one has white keys, which reflect the monitor light much better. 

Although I’m a touch typist, the lack of backlight turns me into a flashlight-enabled hunt-and-pecker when I’m looking for function keys or other special keys.

I would also suggest that Zagg rethink the colors on the keyboard. The function key type is in blue. To me, this implies that the blue function key, combined with keys that are also blue, invokes the “blue” feature of the keys. But that isn’t how it works. The Spotlight search key, for instance, is also a blue “F4” key, but it’s Spotlight Search that gets called upon when I hit function F4, not the F4 function in play in the current app.

The “fn” key, therefore, should be white, not blue. Function-ctrl, however, does light up the battery level indicator on the power (del) key, which is a blue fn-key doing a blue thing. The function-key mapping should be consistent.

The battery and charging circuitry make for a relatively heavy keyboard when compared to the similarly priced Logitech Keys-to-Go portable keyboard. However, Zagg’s size does suggest mobility and the choice of carrying a heavier or lighter keyboard remains entirely up to its owner.

Zagg Pro Keyboard 12: The bottom line

Zagg’s Pro Keyboard 12 offers a good typing experience for a compact keyboard—in a well-lit environment. The keyboard’s long battery life, multiple device and OS connectivity, and environmental nods make it a solid investment. Backlighting and a more refined user experience would take it to the next level.

Zagg provided the Zagg Pro Keyboard 12 for review. Images courtesy of Zagg unless otherwise noted.

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