Mokibo Fusion review: bad keyboard and bad touchpad in one

Best prices today: Mokibo Fusion Keyboard

If you spend a lot of time on your phone or tablet, you may have thought about turning it into a full-fledged mobile work machine, effectively replacing your laptop. You may have already done this! Either way, you’re probably interested in making sure your setup has the bare minimum hardware required to achieve everything you need. And for these types of users, Mokibo Fusion may be the pure, platonic ideal of pint-sized productivity.

Further reading: Best Wireless Keyboards of 2024: Best Bluetooth and USB Models

In short, Mokibo is a keyboard and touchpad rolled into one. The surface of the Bluetooth keyboard’s keys is touch-sensitive, allowing you to drag your finger across them, simulating the movement of a mouse, as you’re no doubt accustomed to on a laptop. It’s an intriguing idea that, coupled with the truly tiny size of a mobile keyboard, could potentially be a game changer for mobile devices.

Michael Crider / Foundry

Potential, but unfortunately not reality. Having tried to use Mokibo for its intended purpose, I found the experience iffy at best and infuriating at worst. The space and weight it certainly saves over a travel keyboard and mouse combo just isn’t worth dealing with the clunky implementation of this unique but flawed gadget.

Mokibo Fusion: as a keyboard

The Fusion feels both like a quality package and something of a throwback to the past. I love its built-in lid, which functions as a power button (turns on automatically when you open it) and as a stand for your tablet or phone when unfolded. The materials are durable, if not stunning, with the review unit being a soft-touch white plastic.

The layout is fairly standard compared to a laptop keyboard, although it is significantly tapered on the left and right and is the same size as a typical iPad (like my 4th gen Air) with 9.25 inches of 235mm key space. Compare that to 10.75 inches or 275mm on my work laptop. It shrinks a bit, but not particularly on the main alphanumeric keys. The layout is similar to the official Apple keyboard for 11-inch iPads. or Logitech’s Keys to Go 2appended with a compressed Function string.

Michael Crider / Foundry

The exception is the space, or more precisely, the stripes. They are divided into three parts, with one central button serving as the main mouse click. You can right-click the Fn button, although there are other options that we’ll cover later. The left and right space keys, the latter with the Mokibo logo, are well positioned for natural thumb presses without accidentally hitting the center.

So how could something so new and advanced turn out to be a throwback? It’s all about the feel of the keys. The layout may look familiar, but the keys themselves are spaced just a millimeter apart. This is similar to laptop keyboards from at least 15 years ago, before extra spacing (what were called “chalky” or “chip keys” at the time) became the norm. The reason for this seemingly old-fashioned choice is obvious, or will become obvious soon.

That being said, I suddenly understand why all the laptop and keyboard manufacturers switched to chiclet keys around the same time. even brands like Lenovo’s ThinkPad who pay so much attention to typing. Going back to this old-fashioned layout, I found it difficult to type neatly as apparently my fingers had become accustomed to the little extra padding. Combined with the cramped side keys, especially for things like the apostrophe (which I often miss for semicolons or the return key), that’s quite a shift.

Michael Crider / Foundry

It’s not insurmountable, but if you’re used to a standard-sized keyboard and/or frequently switch between this smaller layout and the regular one, it can be quite annoying. This cramped layout and short key spacing isn’t helped by the fact that the keyboard isn’t very comfortable to type on. It’s perfectly flat, without any ridges or corners, and the keys are shallow and soft. Compared to Logitech Keys to Go 2, which I adapted to pretty quickly, it’s a real struggle.

A larger version of Fusion for the 12.9-inch iPad may solve at least some of these problems. But when I type those words on the keyboard itself, I really can’t wait to use anything else.

Mokibo Fusion: as a touchpad

On a technical level, I can appreciate that creating a physical keyboard that doubles as a touchpad is an impressive achievement. But actually using it as such is, well, a chore. I tested Fusion on my Android phone, iPad, and Windows desktop. And for all three of them it turned out to be an almost painful experience.

The touch keys can act as one giant touchpad, apparently using the four center rows and all but the leftmost and rightmost keys. This makes for massive The tracking area is larger than any laptop touchpad I’ve ever seen. It’s also capable of touch-clicking, smart enough to differentiate left-click from right-click (no need to use the center spacebar if you don’t want to), and can handle basic multi-touch gestures. Two fingers for scrolling, three fingers for switching tasks, and so on.

Michael Crider / Foundry

It’s quite cool to run your fingers over seemingly ordinary keys and see the cursor move. But very quickly you run into a rather serious disadvantage: you have to do this without pressing any of the very thin and shallow keys. It’s doable with a little practice—again, I’m reminded of the transition period in older laptop designs when every brand used trackpads that you could physically click on instead of relying on dedicated mouse buttons. But there is one more thing that requires adaptation on the part of the user.

The Fusion isn’t very good as a trackpad. Despite the large physical area of ​​movement of the cursor, it is finicky and sometimes jumps… as you would expect from a trackpad that is physically divided into several zones. It’s usable, but it’s much worse than a dedicated trackpad.

And that’s without taking into account the fact that this is the same surface that you have to print on at the same time. When using Fusion, I very often find myself activating the cursor while typing or, less frequently, typing while using the cursor. Just a minute ago I managed to delete an entire paragraph without even wanting to do it.

Michael Crider / Foundry

You can solve at least some of these problems by pressing Fn + Caps Lock, which disables the touchpad functionality. At this point, the Fusion is “just” a keyboard…small and awkward. This is a less tedious way to enter long lines of text, but it essentially defeats the purpose of using this keyboard/touchpad combo device.

I wonder if the designers thought, “If we need a special feature to disable the touchpad to make typing easier, should this keyboard really be a touchpad?”

Mokibo Fusion: Other Disadvantages

When closed, the Fusion is surprisingly light and compact and practically disappears into a bag or even a (very large) pocket. This is definitely cool as an addition to my iPad or Galaxy Fold. Unfortunately, the additional function of the case as a stand for a tablet or phone leaves much to be desired.

Its magnetic fold has only one stable position. And for me it’s very unnatural, too vertical for a tablet screen. The lack of options forced me to resort to more reliable stands. folding magnetic stand Moft. for tablet and this stand is Magsafe thing for my phone.

Michael Crider / Foundry

But that meant closing the cover under the Fusion’s keyboard, making typing even less convenient, or simply leaving it dangling under the tablet or phone, which was a cumbersome appendage when trying to type.

I understand that this comes across as a very negative review, but the truth is that I simply don’t see a situation in which I would actually prefer to use Fusion. It only really makes sense for a phone or tablet, but it’s just a mediocre keyboard and a completely clunky touchpad. Trying to use it at the same time, without the help of the Fn + Caps Lock tool, is just incredibly frustrating.

Michael Crider / Foundry

Since you’ll almost certainly be using Fusion with a device that already has a touchscreen, it’s more accurate and less frustrating to just… touch the screen. Paired with a travel keyboard or case, you don’t really save any weight or space with the Fusion, and many iPad options or even universal cases have plenty of vertical space for the touchpad anyway.

After trying Fusion for a few weeks, I would choose the Keys to Go 2 and a small mouse in almost any situation. Or, frankly, skip the mouse and use a touchscreen. Fusion is an interesting idea, but I think it would probably be better left on the drawing board. In practice, combining a keyboard and touchpad results in one device that plays rather poorly with both.