Review: iClever folding Bluetooth keyboard is portable, solid and very affordable

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of projections and claims that we are now in a ‘Post PC era’. But despite the fact that more people than ever are using mobile devices and tablets for web browsing and gaming, when it comes to getting real work done, you can’t replace a physical keyboard with a virtual one.

While using a Bluetooth keyboard with a smartphone or tablet is never going to make for a compelling laptop replacement, it may just be the accessory that saves you in a pinch, especially if you have little space to store gadgets while on the move. The iClever folding keyboard is a wireless affordable keyboard with sturdy metal construction that you can take anywhere.

Of course, (most of) this review was typed on the iClever foldable Bluetooth keyboard. And I have to say, that when you’re used to touch typing on a full sized keyboard, the small keys on the iClever can take some time to get used to. For the first time in years, I was staring at the keys, anxiously focussing to make sure that I didn’t press any wrong keys. And even then, I wasn’t guaranteed to hit all the right ones. But then, that’s pretty much as I expected from a portable foldable keyboard designed for mobile products.

They keyboard itself consists of five rows of keys. As with most accessories of this nature, the top row is all numbers, secondary characters and symbols. Blue icons like the copy, cut, paste and music controls denote which ones require the function key to activate. This function key sits on the bottom row in between the ‘Ctrl’ and ‘Win’ keys.

One interesting choice was opting to place directional arrow keys on the keyboard, something I perhaps would expect to be cut out to save space, or made into secondary functions on nearby keys instead.