TypeTop Bluetooth Mini Keyboard Case for iPhone 4 hands-on

So you’ve got an iPhone 4 and you aren’t 100 per cent sure about the onscreen keyboard.

While the easy option would be to just live with it and let the onscreen keyboard grow on you, the chaps at TypeTop have thought of a more round the houses way of dealing with the problem: create a Bluetooth keyboard that you can connect to the iPhone to tap out your emails on.

The TypeTop Bluetooth Mini Keyboard Case for iPhone 4 combines a hardwearing, protective koskin flip case and a full QWERTY Bluetooth mini keyboard.

The iPhone 4 slots into a plastic casing within the koskin case with the keyboard sitting beneath it in landscape.

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Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to get your phone out of the case quickly when you have a call and that means you’ll have to hold it, the case, and the keyboard up to your face when talking to someone - yep it feels like you’re back in the Eighties.

Out the back of the case is a flipout kickstand so the iPhone can be angled towards you so you can see the screen when typing, trouble is, it’s not that sturdy and our test model kept falling over.

On to the keyboard, and there’s no sudden turnaround. The QWERTY keyboard itself is about the same size and thickness of the iPhone with rubber ZX Spectrum style keys doubling the size of the device in your pocket, and making dedicated phones with slide out keyboards look decidedly thin.

The actual keys themselves are spongy with too much resistance making typing uncomfortable and harder than merely using the onscreen offering from Apple.

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The keyboard does feature a built-in rechargeable battery, allowing the Bluetooth keyboard to be recharged via USB.  When fully charged, the keyboard’s battery should last for over 100 hours of use.

The case is also available as a French version iPhone 4 keyboard case and a German version iPhone 4 keyboard case, which can be purchased from sister sites mobilefun.fr and mobilefun.de respectively. 

The TypeTop Bluetooth Mini Keyboard Case for iPhone 4 is a “nice” idea, but in reality it doesn’t work, and should be avoided.