Twelve South

TwelveSouth’s Early Christmas Gift For Bibliophiles Is The BookBook For iPad Mini [Review]

I’ll admit it: I loved the BookBook for iPad. Yet less than a week after I’d written the review, the BookBook Case for iPad was already in a bin with all the other iPad cases that I’ve tried (and failed) to love longer term.

Why? The issue is pretty simple. The BookBook for iPad is a wonderfully made case, but at the end of the day, I find myself using needing a case for my iPad that is effortlessly pulled off and re-applied. Ironically, the reason why is because I’m constantly using another TwelveSouth product with my iPad: the HoverBar, a fantastic articulating arm for the iPad that I’ve got attached over my bedboard as a makeshift streaming video and audio console. Ironically, there’s just no way to fit an iPad into the Hoverbar if you’re using a BookBook as your case.

Now that the BookBook for iPad mini is here, though, I think I finally have a BookBook that will stay on my iDevice for more than a week or so. The iPad mini is simply the device the BookBook was made for.

Like previous BookBooks, the BookBook for iPad mini is a folio-style case for Apple’s smaller iPad that looks, to the untrained eye, like a distressed leather volume plucked from the arcane shelves of some Ninth Gate style book collector.

How much you like this conceit depends upon your sensibilities. If you’re the sort of person who gets an electric thrill from the hidden book or bottle squirreled away inside an empty book, the BookBook Case is right up your alley. Likewise, if you’re as much bibliophile (or more so) you’ll love the BookBook. In my experience, walking around with a BookBook is to garner constant compliments and admiring inquiries, but there’s no doubt that some would look at the product as pretentious.

If you do buy into the BookBook’s conceit, though, the Mini version is actually probably closer experience to carrying around a real book than the BookBook for iPad, iPhone or MacBook. All of those are either too big to plausibly be books, or a little too small. The BookBook for iPad mini, however, is exactly the size of a Library of America hardcover. It feels great.

Otherwise, this is the same case as the BookBook for iPad, only smaller. The same gorgeous construction applies throughout. A leather sleeve inside the BookBook holds your mini in place, allowing you to “unfold” your iPad mini from the binding of the “book” to take pictures with the back camera, prop it up for watching a movie or even type upon by folding back a small leather flap. A couple of tiny brass buttons snap it into place, so it stays secure in the binding without flopping around.

What it all boils down to, for me, is that the BookBook for iPad mini feels right in a way that the BookBook for iPad or BookBook for iPhone didn’t. I love the “fake book” conceit, but the BookBook mini is the first TwelveSouth case that made me actually feel like I was wandering around with a real book and not a tablet.

If you treat your iPad mini more like a dedicated e-reader than anything else, the BookBook for iPad mini is the perfect case for it, although be warned: the BookBook for iPad mini costs $69.99, just like its big brother.

Best case scenario for the iPad mini: BookBook

Apple almost ruined the iPad mini. Twice.

Its first mistake was the glaring omission of a Retina Display (a topic for another post). The second was the horrible Smart Cover that Apple released along side it -- the only cover available at launch because of Apple's hyper-secretive nature. Unlike the Smart Cover for the full-size iPad, the mini version feels junky. It looks doesn't fit properly, it falls over as a stand and it doesn't come in black or white. In short, it's a disaster.

Well, it's time to toss your $40 mini Smart Cover in the trash because there's a new sheriff in town: BookBook for iPad mini ($69.99) by twelvesouth. Unlike the garbage Smart Cover, BookBook is the epitome of good taste. It's a portfolio case that when zippered shut, looks like a beautiful leather-bound book. But its beauty is more than skin deep. BookBook offers great protection for your iPad while being a completely functional case.

When it's zipped open you can use the iPad mini book style, or your can unsnap one side of the case and use a small kickstand to prop it up to a more comfortable typing angle. It even flips open for easy access to the camera on the rear. You might look a tad silly using the iPad mini camera, but not as ridiculous as using the full-size iPad.

I've long been a fan of twelvesouth's BookBook cases because they tone down the tech. When you bring one into a meeting, it stops being about what device you're carrying and the conversation focuses on the task at hand (It's probably going to draw a few glances when you bust it out though). BookBook mini is a high quality piece that's more akin to a family heirloom than a tech accessory. While it adds a bit of heft to the wafer-thin mini, it adds it in all the right places.