MacBook Air Accessory Review: Waterfield Keyboard Travel Express

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This summer Elana will be moving between our home in New Jersey and our mountain runaway in Pennsylvania a few times each week. Each time she does she will likely take her 11″ MacBook air and a few key accessories: her Magic Mouse and Apple Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard.

Waterfield’s new Keyboard Travel Express is the perfect accessory bag for her needs. It holds the keyboard and a few key accessories in a great-looking, well-made, protective case.

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From Waterfield:

Go Fully Mobile. Be good to yourself—and your wrists—and pack along the Apple Wireless Keyboard for the road. The Keyboard Travel Express carries and protects the Apple Wireless Keyboard, the power adapter and cord, and the mouse, SuperDrive or TrackPad all in one sturdy, attractive case. Soft, scratch-free pockets coddle and organize the contents. The black ballistic exterior comes with bold accent stripe in a choice of six earthy colors. A YKK zipper seals the deal. Mix and match the Keyboard Travel Express with your other WaterField gear bags and you’ll be as cool as they come.

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Whenever we are taking a look at a new product from Waterfield I like to include a closeup like this. The reason? A picture is worth a thousand words and this picture tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the product and the company. The materials are of the highest quality, the construction is flawless and it looks great, I can honestly say that has been the case with EVERY one of their products we have reviewed. Best of all?  The products are made in the good ol’ USA.

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Inside the Keyboard Travel Express you will find soft, padded material and a few key dividers.

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The Bluetooth Keyboard slips in the main compartment. It is sized perfectly. That means it won’t work for a larger keyboard but, after all, it was designed with this specific keyboard in mind so that shouldn’t be an issue.

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Elana uses a Magic Mouse and it fits in the left pocket. I suspect she will want a Magic TrackPad when her air is upgraded to OS X Lion. (Seriously, the multi-touch functionality it adds is KILLER! After just a few days I could not imagine going without the ability to swipe between full-screen application windows!) Thankfully the pockets are also sized for the trackpad!

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There is plenty of room for the power adapter.

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And for the VGA and DVI adapters that make it easy to pump the 11″ Air’s screen to something larger.

Of course the selection of accessories you want to bring along will be different and the Keyboard Travel Express is flexible enough to be used with a fairly large number of important accessories.

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When it is filled it makes for a nice, neat, protective package that you can simply grab and go. Elana’s only complaint…

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“I love my Rain Design’s mStand and need a way to carry it too!”

Of course that is not a shortcoming of the Keyboard Travel Express but, yes, she sure does love that stand!

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Waterfield’s new Keyboard Travel Express is a great accessory for anyone who uses a keyboard and mouse/trackpad with their MacBook or who opt for the Bluetooth keyboard when writing on their iPad. It is a small protective package that lets you carry “just enough” but not “too much”. And as an added bonus, if you already use one of Waterfield’s cases for your notebook or tablet this creates a matching set. 🙂

It is available directly from Waterfield and comes with the colored stripe in black, copper, flame, green, pearl and pine.

MSRP: $49.99

What I Like: Well made; thoughtfully designed for a specific set of accessories; matches other Waterfield cases; nicely protective without being bulky

What Needs Improvement: Nothing, so long as you know that this is specifically intended for the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and related accessories

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About the Author

Dan Cohen
Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.

1 Comment on "MacBook Air Accessory Review: Waterfield Keyboard Travel Express"

  1. thenikjones | June 19, 2011 at 3:57 pm |

    One problem I find carrying the BT keyboard in my laptop bag is that the keys are pressed which then activates my iPad/iPod Touch – does this pouch help to reduce this, have you found?

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