Favorite Android Virtual Keyboard...

jdwx

Well-known member
Nov 27, 2009
78
1
0
Visit site
Didn't quite see this in a search, so, I'll bite.

I'm pretty much running with the Native, Better Keyboard w/oil slick skin, and SWYPE. The latter two seem to be my most used.

They all have their good points I guess, and I'm still on the fence among them.

Among these (or any others I'm oblivious of for that matter), any pros/cons that anyone cares to discuss that might be interesting?

Does the native do stuff the others like Better Keyboard really don't? I don't use it much and I see a lot of people go back to it. Any reasons?

I know I love SWYPE but it really drives me crazy with whacky predictive words and it seems to slowly get polluted with weird words I can't delete. And, just plain does weird crap under some conditions. If it's dictionary was highly (and easily) editable to get rid of the stupid stuff, I'd probably LOVE swype the most.

If you're bored.... Discuss?
 

Jared DiPane

Well-known member
Feb 7, 2010
1,009
5
0
www.twitter.com
Well lets see.

I started off hating both the on screen and physical keyboard so I went to see alternatives. In the process I think I downloaded every one of them. Swype was cool but predictive text display bothered me. SlideIt was a great alternative (available in the market) with a nice look but low resolution for some reason. Then I tried better keyboard with the Oil Slick skin, liked it but kept trying it. Smart Keyboard has multitouch, kinda cool but no corrective text or anything, so no go for me.

I am now back on the stock on screen keyboard and after toying with all the rest I have a new found love or it. Also love the physical keyboard more now.

My $.02
 

corydunbar

Well-known member
Dec 31, 2009
759
44
0
Visit site
I'm a big fan of all of the stock keyboards and have found no reason to change. Virtual (portrait and landscape) and the phyisical all serve me well. I love how good the spell check/predictive text is on the virtual portrait to counter act those micro buttons. They're as small as a BB 8330's but at the same time they have no physical indecator for eaach button. But I have grown to love it for its purposes. Mostly quick texts and text fields while web browsing (passwords & usernames) other than that, I prefer the physical over the vertual landscape, it leaves more screen space and I'm just way more accurate on it. If I'm less concerned about mistakes for long texts I am faster with the vitual landscape though. So I am just a big fan of all of the stock keyboards. Way to go motorola!
 

jdwx

Well-known member
Nov 27, 2009
78
1
0
Visit site
So, sorta two votes on the native being the one. I seemed to see that before. I may have to work that one again. I freaked on it when I got the phone and got everythig else I could and haven't really used it a lot since I got more cool with the phone. I need to check it again.

Physical... I just can't deal with the top row... fingers seem too big and I get LOTS of mistakes, plus no spellcheck/predictive and that is sorta needed for me with these a bit I think. Been trying to use it more and more in hope of maybe finding love...
 

prometheus

Well-known member
Jan 5, 2010
675
8
0
Visit site
I use swype. Thee are many times when it just does weird stuff for no discernible reason. On the whole it's pretty good.

I would suggest anyone unhappy with the predictive text features - press and hold the swype button and mess around with your settings. It's very customizable.

So, put me down for + 1 for swype
 

Jared DiPane

Well-known member
Feb 7, 2010
1,009
5
0
www.twitter.com
I use swype. Thee are many times when it just does weird stuff for no discernible reason. On the whole it's pretty good.

I would suggest anyone unhappy with the predictive text features - press and hold the swype button and mess around with your settings. It's very customizable.

So, put me down for + 1 for swype

I liked Swype, til I found out how much of a memory hog it was. Have you checked the file size in your applications menu?

I used it for a week, and it was nearly 10mb in size, no reason for it to be so large. I dont need it to store my custom words without a way to delete them.

SlideIt worked much the same if you can deal with the lower resolution image on the screen but I also found it to be more accurate and a nicer presentation of the words it was predicting.
 

simp_10

Well-known member
Nov 7, 2009
130
4
0
Visit site
I used swype and was really able to type quite fast and accurately. I agree with prometheus, check your settings and adjust them to allow more/less accuracy with the predictive text. Most of the time I never had the predictive text pop up as it recognized the word I wanted. So +1 for Swype.

On another note, due to root I use the stock so I simply run my finger across the keyboard to bring up Speech to text. Working great so far but without it, definitely Swype for me.
 

jdwx

Well-known member
Nov 27, 2009
78
1
0
Visit site
Was wondering abou the SlideIt... Heard it wasn't so great compared to swype. I'm pretty fluent with swype. I'll just have to try it myself. Downloading now...
 

Mohawk3

Active member
Nov 1, 2009
42
1
8
Visit site
I typically use swype, but am testing out slideIT just in the case that swype doesn't work when the Droid gets updated to 2.1. I didn't hate the original keyboard, but I greatly prefer the swype / slide method of text input.
 

entwined82

Well-known member
Jan 24, 2010
214
1
0
Visit site
Native in portrait or landscape is real nice. I feel like I make more mistakes on betterkeyboard but I do switch back and forth once in a while. I love the compact qwerty, Moto really dropped the ball not including one of these by default.
 

prometheus

Well-known member
Jan 5, 2010
675
8
0
Visit site
Slightly off subject.... regarding memory issues: most people who are concerned about memory use are blackberry refugees. I don't know if that was the case from the poster above.

Anyhow, what are you worried about? I have like 70 + apps, I hardly ever check available memory, when I do, I always have about 60%+ available. I never get random reboots, I never get old messages deleted, I have zero lag, don't use any silly app killers - so, without being argumentative, who cares about memory? This isn't a blackberry - let go.
 

DeeMat

Well-known member
Jan 2, 2010
191
2
0
Visit site
My vote is still for Swype. Even as a beta application, it works great. In my case, I have kept it over ShapeWriter and SlideIT.
 

entwined82

Well-known member
Jan 24, 2010
214
1
0
Visit site
Slightly off subject.... regarding memory issues: most people who are concerned about memory use are blackberry refugees. I don't know if that was the case from the poster above.

Anyhow, what are you worried about? I have like 70 + apps, I hardly ever check available memory, when I do, I always have about 60%+ available. I never get random reboots, I never get old messages deleted, I have zero lag, don't use any silly app killers - so, without being argumentative, who cares about memory? This isn't a blackberry - let go.

I'm running with 96MB of space in use typically.

I've had SMS messages deleted once (last night actually) but after that I switched to ChompSMS just to see how it is and if it'll be any better. So far I prefer it, we'll see if messages clear out.

I still had the HTC mogul mindset. 64MB of RAM, down to 28 after boot. I was constantly running a memory cleaner app and killing processes. Even on Blackberry I did the same (running 96MB with ~20MB free 99% of the time). Its a hard thing to stop when so many phones require so much maintenance just to get through the day, now I can't believe a phone actually doesn't need all of that but sure enough the Droid lasts without major tweaks. Just a lot of battery charging since I'm constantly playing with the phone.
 

that1bb

Well-known member
Nov 12, 2009
76
2
0
Visit site
All stock for me. However, I am looking forward to MessagEase being developed for Android. I know they are working on it.
I remember MessagEase from when I had a Palm. It is great for one handed use. Not quite as fast as two hands using the stock keyboard, but if you do a bit of one handed typing, it should be worth the look. It does take a bit to get used to though. Cheers!
 

Cory Streater

Well-known member
Sep 21, 2009
9,495
3,428
0
Visit site
My favorite alternate keyboard is SlideIT, but I still find myself going back to the stock keyboard a lot. With Swype it seemed like I spent more time correcting things than it was worth.
 

prometheus

Well-known member
Jan 5, 2010
675
8
0
Visit site
Well, I just downloaded SlideIT. I know I need to use it for a little while before making a fully informed decision. But, initial impression is... Did a 3 year old design the graphics? Why is it such low resolution?

Are you kidding me? "downloaded" wasn't in the dictionary. By the way, typing "wasn't" wasn't easy, 8 keystrokes for a 5 letter word.

Come on, "keystrokes" isn't in the dictionary, seriously?

I'm thinking, fail. But, I am intrigued by the "shortcuts" option.

Seriously? "shortcuts" isn't in the dictionary.

I'm done, fail, uninstall. Hey, whaddaya know... Uninstall isn't in the dictionary either. SlideIT has the vocabulary of a drunk monkey.

PS: I MUST be using this wrong. NO ONE would endorse this if it's as bad as my experience. So, what am I doing wrong?
 
Last edited: