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ZAGGmate Keyboard, appalling quality

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MarkK

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This week, I bought a ZAGGmate Keyboard.
Unpacked, charged, tried to pair it with the iPad, only to find that it was DOA.
OK, shit happens, brought it back, got it exchanged.

Charged it, pulled out the plug, out came the socket with it.
Just like that, without putting exccessive force on it.

Extremely pissed, I went back and got another one.

Never even got as far as charging it, because when I tried to put my iPad in, that plastic angle you need to pull up for resting the iPad against it came out and I found that one of these little hinges was missing.

Thsi time, they refused to exchange it, because according to them, this was a mechanical fault caused by some kind of wrong handling on my side.
All discussions were fruitless, so I took it back home and thought I might glue some metal hinge on to get it to work.
So, I pluuged it in, the blue light came on, it charged and I even managed to pair it.
Finally.
Only... it stopped working a few minutes later and went dead when I moved it to work with it on my lap.

That really pissed me off.
For me, 99 Dollars is money, and shelling it out for some useless piece of crap isn't my favourite thing to do.
As I was stuck with this dead junk now, I decided I might take as well take it apart and check it out.
Well... the inside is even worse than the outside. No wonder this thing didn't work.
First of all, the micro USB-socket is soldered on only with two tiny bits of solder. This HAS to come off sooner or later.
Furthermore, checking the soldering with a magnifying glass, I saw that there was a piece of solder stuck between two leads. I guess this caused it to short out. Overall, the soldering is very bad, as though they soldered it with a wrong temperatore.
Then, the keyboard-connector was half loose, it hadn't been properly stuck into the socket.
The whole construction is just stuck together with loads of adhesive tape.
I remember this kind of 'workmanship' from stuff we bought in the seventies of the last century, but in the 21st century we live in now, I would have expected production-methods to have developed a bit.

Taking a close look at the aluminum, I guess the fact that the keyboard itself didn't work might actually have saved my life. The edges hadn't been treated properly, the danger of cutting your wrists on that isn't all that small.

All that I can say about the ZAGGmate Keyboard is: Keep your hands off!

Getting one faulty item can always happen. But three of them, all with different faults... where is their quality-control? Paying 99$ for a piece of bent aluminum and a little keyboard, I at least expect some decent quality.
 

rocketranch

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I have had a ZAGGmate keyboard since they first went on sale. I use it each and every day and it has performed flawlessly from day one and would give it 5 stars on quality. Sorry to hear you have had problems with it.
 

Gellio

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I had problems with the one I bought at Best Buy. I contacted Zagg and they sent me a new one.
 

MattIM

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I have owned my Zaggmate Keyboard/Case since mid-December 2010 and have found it to be a flawless, high quality product. The fact that you got three bad cases should be proof positive that you are unique. :eek:

May I suggest you read this thread and find the member of the forum who goes by the name of Zagg and private message that person to see what he can do for you? Based on what I have read, I think Zagg goes out of his way to try to resolve individual problems so that he can better position his company to determine a supply issue problem, a build issue problem, or somewhere in between.

http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-acce...-review-zaggmate-bluetooth-keyboard-case.html
 
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MarkK

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I had heard only positive things as well, that's why I was so disappointed.
They had three chances to convince me and three times I was supplied a bad product.
I think that's enough.
For me this seems like the usual story which we have seen so many times:
Good product, huge success, company pushes chinese manufacturer to supply high volume fast, chinese manufacturer takes on new unskilled migrant labor fast, they somehow slap the stuff together, no time for extended quality control and off goes an inferior batch to the USA.
I guess all three of my ZAGGmates came from the same bad batch.
But actually, I don't care. I expect at least a certain degree of quality which I didn't get.
If my theory is correct, we'll see a lot more negatve reviews in the near future. :-(
 

Rperez414

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Man, that is so unlike the Zaggmate that I got at my local Bestbuy in Indiana that I find this story real hard to believe. Besides the functionality of my Zaggmate, the next thing I liked was the whole aura of high quality compared to all the cheap keyboard case combos I've seen. The pleasing feel of the keys and eye-catching finish just work.

My first thought was that you are some scumbag who can't afford a Zaggmate hoping to get a free one somehow by making up this hard to believe story. Come on, sharp metal that could kill you? Plug just came out? Hinge fell off? Even in a low quality control environment THREE in a row is statistically impossible.

But than I remembered an experience I had with Motorola S9 Bluetooth headphones for my iphone 4. They were obscenely constructed and I was horrified at their low quality when an ear bud literally broke off. Turns out that they were chinese fakes and the packaging, manual, and paint scheme were superb facsimiles. Motorola has had a huge problem with knockoffs. Could european vendors be suffering from a similar scam?
 

skimonkey

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Considering that this thread is 2 years old, chances may be that these members will not respond to your direct question.


With this-we will now close this thread. Thank you for your understanding.

Skimonkey ~~ sent from my iPad using iPF
 
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