The Toccata is PADACS's answer to those who don't like the onscreen iPad keyboard much for productivity work. It's a combination iPad case and Bluetooth connected keyboard that promises up to 45 hours of use per charge.
As someone who counts myself amongst those who don't like the iPad onscreen keyboard — I'm getting used to it but I'll never ever be as fast or accurate as I am on a regular keyboard — it should be a marriage made in heaven. It's more like a civil union made in purgatory.
Setting up the Toccata represents no particular challenges. The case is of the slip in folio style, and the keyboard charges via micro-USB cable. Pairing is as simple as it is with any given device. So far, so good.
Users of a certain age (yes, I'm dating myself rather badly here) who remember the Sinclair ZX Spectrum will find a certain nostalgia with the Toccata, as it uses a soft rubber keyboard rather than a harder plastic one. The phrase "Dead Flesh" was often applied to the Spectrum, and the same is somewhat true here. It's slightly creepy, but it makes sense when you realise the layout of the keyboard would place it directly against the iPad screen. Would you rather have a solid keyboard and an inevitably scratched iPad screen?
The addition of a keyboard to an already thick case also makes the Toccata a very bulky case, roughly three times the thickness of the iPad itself. For some users that'll be a dealbreaker; for others hardly a problem at all. Again, so far, so good, or at least so acceptable. When I'm working on the road, my iPad goes into a bag, so I'm rarely fussed if it's a few millimetres thicker than normal.
There's really only one way to test a keyboard, and that's to do a lot of typing on it. So I'll finish up this review by typing the rest of the review on it.
Opinions will vary, but I loved the Toccata (for what it was), including the embedded audio playback keys that hook neatly into iTunes, right up until I had to hit an apostrophe. You see, you can
't
Damn. You can
't. Double damn. The apostrophe key isn
't where it should be at the right of the colon keys. Instead, it
's shoved down the bottom next to the space bar. The practical result? If you
're a touch typist, you
'll nearly always hit enter rather than the apostrophe key. It
's a pity, as otherwise the response of the Toccata
's keys is quite good compared to onscreen usage.
At an asking price not that dissimilar to that of a full keyboard the Toccata represents a mixed value offering. There
's no doubt that for iPad users after a level of productivity that having an actual keyboard to hand will enable more work to be done, and the Toccata does manage that feat. At the same time, the soft rubbery keyboard won
't appeal to everybody, the odd key arrangement makes fast typing of some words quite difficult, and naturally, if you forget to charge it, it
's not much use at all.
