The quick recommendation: There is no one size fits all – try a few with the features and font size you need.
The longer answer:
Firstly, this is a longer post than previously but there wasn’t an easy place to break it up and choosing a suitable keyboard is one aspect where there isn’t a clear best answer but what you use does fundamentally affect how smoothly you can interact with your device. There are many on screen keyboards available for Android, all with different features and different ways of predicting text (or not) and displaying different items on the main keyboard (number row, arrows, etc).
I tested as many of the ‘large print’ and most of the more popular keyboards I could find. I excluded several keyboards with ‘dymanic’ layouts such as the ThickButtons Keyboard (where keys change size depending on what the keyboard expects you to need next) as these require even more constant scrutiny of the keyboard visually and were more tiring to use than even a constant layout, smaller print keyboard. I have listed them here in order of their key text size on my Galaxy Note II with its 5.5” screen (and the size of suggestions and secondary characters which can be accessed by holding down keys), as well as colour options and whether they work with speech:
There are several main options for entering text into Android, each has their pros and cons:
– Only Tap – Entering each character manually. The downside of this method is that it is very easy to slightly miss a letter and enter typos.
– Sliding (or Swiping). This method involves placing your finger on the first letter in a word then sliding across to the next letter, then without lifting, slide to the next letter and so on. The keyboard’s dictionary will then predict which word you have typed. The advantage is that you can often get away with not being quite as accurate and it doesn’t require as much concentration, staring at the screen. Another big advantage is if you have Android 4.2, you can enter text quickly without tapping the screen repeatedly and inadvertently turning the magnifier on and off.
– Tap w/ Word prediction. As you are typing a word, a line above the keyboard shows the most likely words you are trying to enter and you can stop typing and tap on one of the words. The disadvantage of this mode is that you need to be constantly concentrating on the list of suggestions, which on most of the keyboards I tested, was in a smaller font than the keyboard itself. I found on many keyboards, the most efficient way of using the suggestions, was to type at least three letters before looking for suggestions.
Voice input. To be honest I didn’t really test this method, as quite often I’m in public and would rather type discretely into my device rather than talk into it (gone are the days when ‘talking into it’ was solely what a mobile phone were for!).
The next table lists the keyboards by order of the available input methods and key text size, and also lists some of the features of each:
Learns – Indicates whether the keyboard learns words that you type, in order to offer them to you as suggestions in the future.
Auto Correct – automatically correct common typing errors. Great when it fixes things you mistype, but frustrating if it changes something you weren’t expecting.
Auto Capitalise – Indicates whether the first letter in a new sentence is capitalised.
Number Row – Indicates whether there is a row of numbers at the of the main keyboard screen. If not, it will be on a secondary screen available by a key on screen. On some keyboards numbers and symbols can be accessed by holding down certain letters.
Arrows – These, if present, allow you to move through text you are typing character by character, or line by line. This can be easier than trying to tap in the right place in the text itself to edit.
| Keyboard | Method | Learns | Auto Correct | Auto-capitalise | Number row | Arrows |
|
LinType Keyboard |
Slide | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
|
Ultra Keyboard |
Slide | Yes | Yes | No | Selectable | Selectable |
|
TSwipe-Pro |
Slide | Yes | No | Yes | No | Secondary |
|
Slide IT keyboard |
Slide | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
|
Swiftkey Keyboard |
Slide | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
|
Cellular Big Button |
Slide | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
|
Samsung Keyboard |
Slide | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
|
Swipe |
Slide | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
|
Google Keyboard |
Slide | No | Yes | No | No | No |
|
Touchpal |
Slide | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
|
A.I.type Keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
|
Perfect Keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
|
Flexpansion Keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | No | Yes | No | Selectable | No |
|
Jelly Bean keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
|
Agile Keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | No | No | No | No |
|
Kii keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | No | Full version | Full version |
|
Adaptxt Keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
|
Big keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
|
Easy keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | No | Selectable | Selectable |
|
iKnowU |
Tap w/ prediction | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
|
Super keyboard |
Tap w/ prediction | No | Yes | No | No | No |
|
Dodol |
Only tap | No | Yes | No | Selectable | Selectable |
|
Big buttons keyboard |
Only tap | No | No | Only new line | No | No |
|
Interwrite |
Only tap | No | No | No | No | No |
|
Magic keyboard |
Only tap | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
I took two pieces of text (The Hail Mary prayer, and a typical email I sent a friend recently with more common and informal text but more varied punctuation), which worked out just over 40 words each. I typed each out both by tapping, sliding and using the word prediction where available with each keyboard, and timed it, then took the averages to come up with the table below, sorted by the speed of each. For comparison I also tested with a ¾ size Bluetooth keyboard connected to my phone, and a full size PC keyboard (on my PC):
|
Keyboard |
Method | Average WPM | Rank |
|
Full size PC keyboard |
Touch Type |
63.20 |
1 |
|
3/4 size bluetooth keyboard |
Touch Type |
39.18 |
2 |
|
swype |
Slide |
37.64 |
3 |
|
Touchpal |
Slide |
35.92 |
4 |
|
Google Keyboard |
Slide |
34.13 |
5 |
|
Slide IT keyboard |
Slide |
33.39 |
6 |
|
Samsung Keyboard |
Slide |
33.29 |
7 |
|
A.I.type Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
31.52 |
8 |
|
Agile Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
30.81 |
9 |
|
Touchpal |
Only tap |
29.43 |
10 |
|
Kii keyboard |
Only tap |
29.07 |
11 |
|
Cellular Big Button Keyboard |
Slide |
28.91 |
12 |
|
Swiftkey Keyboard |
Only tap |
28.88 |
13 |
|
A.I.type Keyboard |
Only tap |
28.62 |
14 |
|
Swiftkey Keyboard |
Slide |
28.58 |
15 |
|
Adaptxt Keyboard |
Only tap |
28.06 |
16 |
|
Slide IT keyboard |
Only tap |
27.76 |
17 |
|
Flexpansion Keyboard |
Only tap |
27.66 |
18 |
|
Ultra Keyboard |
Only tap |
27.38 |
19 |
|
Dodol |
Only tap |
26.76 |
20 |
|
Google Keyboard |
Only tap |
26.63 |
21 |
|
Adaptxt Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
26.61 |
22 |
|
LinType Keyboard Beta |
Only tap |
26.45 |
23 |
|
Magic keyboard |
Only tap |
26.37 |
24 |
|
Ultra Keyboard |
Slide |
26.06 |
25 |
|
Perfect Keyboard free |
Only tap |
25.69 |
26 |
|
Super keyboard |
Only tap |
25.67 |
27 |
|
swype |
Only tap |
25.21 |
28 |
|
Touchpal |
Tap w/ word prediction |
25.10 |
29 |
|
iKnowU |
Only tap |
24.77 |
30 |
|
Cellular Big Button Keyboard |
Only tap |
24.63 |
31 |
|
Easy keyboard |
Only tap |
24.45 |
32 |
|
Agile Keyboard |
Only tap |
24.41 |
33 |
|
Interwrite |
Only tap |
24.25 |
34 |
|
Ultra Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
23.69 |
35 |
|
Flexpansion Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
23.63 |
36 |
|
Samsung Keyboard |
Only tap |
23.28 |
37 |
|
Jelly Bean keyboard |
Only tap |
23.26 |
38 |
|
swype |
Tap w/ word prediction |
23.04 |
39 |
|
TSwipe-Pro |
Slide |
22.10 |
40 |
|
LinType Keyboard Beta |
Tap w/ word prediction |
21.72 |
41 |
|
Swiftkey Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
20.96 |
42 |
|
TSwipe-Pro |
Only tap |
20.93 |
43 |
|
LinType Keyboard Beta |
Slide |
20.91 |
44 |
|
Google Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
20.81 |
45 |
|
Perfect Keyboard free |
Tap w/ word prediction |
20.65 |
46 |
|
Easy keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
20.56 |
47 |
|
Samsung Keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
19.77 |
48 |
|
Slide IT keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
19.58 |
49 |
|
Kii keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
19.33 |
50 |
|
Jelly Bean keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
19.06 |
51 |
|
Super keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
18.70 |
52 |
|
iKnowU |
Tap w/ word prediction |
18.44 |
53 |
|
TSwipe-Pro |
Tap w/ word prediction |
16.03 |
54 |
|
Big buttons keyboard standard |
Only tap |
14.80 |
55 |
|
Big keyboard |
Only tap |
14.41 |
56 |
|
Big keyboard |
Tap w/ word prediction |
13.36 |
57 |
While the physical keyboards came out on top, carrying around and pairing Bluetooth devices isn’t always convenient. Interestingly, the size of the key text was only one factor in how quickly I was able to type during the test. Many of the extra large print keyboards, either don’t have slide input or don’t have very accurate word prediction (Ultra keyboard is very customisable but I do often find I need to look at the list of suggested words to choose the right word), and many of the keyboards with excellent prediction don’t allow very large print (eg Swipe or the Samsung keyboard). Having a keyboard I can read easily though is still more comfortable than one I can potentially type faster on, but which I need to concentrate more to use.
I was interested to see that using word prediction actually slowed the speed down a lot in most cases, because on most of the keyboards, the suggested words are displayed in a much smaller font and it took time to read through what were often very similar words to choose the right one – usually I found this was more worthwhile when writing longer words with unique letters near the start (eg keyb…..). It does increase accuracy on keyboards which don’t automatically correct to the most likely suggestion.
Another point to mention is that as a longstanding touch typist, I am quite familiar with the traditional QWERTY layout so can navigate some of the listed keyboards with smaller keys without too much difficulty even without reading the letters clearly, and also I did have more difficulty with some of the modified layouts such as on the Big Keyboard and Big Buttons Keyboard, as the keys weren’t necessarily where I instinctively expected them to be.
Summary:
Key text and word suggestion size will likely give you a starting point on which keyboards you can see. Trial a few suitable keyboards to see which features you prefer. Ideally many of the keyboards work best if you try them for a few days in order for them to ‘learn’ how you type to better tailor suggestions. I didn’t do that with all the keyboards in the test, and it also meant I sometimes had to search for punctuation marks, if they weren’t where I was used to finding them.
Which keyboard do you use with your Android? Share your findings in the comments below.
22 Point Blog! 