Keyboard like the Blackberry

[SalmonFrisby]

I have just moved from Blackberry to Android - and loving it!

I'm looking for a keyboard that is like that of the Blackberry - with groups of 2 or 3 letters together on each key. Is there one, preferably a free one as I'm a bit short at the moment?

 

[asd216]

MultiLing Keyboard is free in the Play Store and has a compact qwerty like the BlackBerry Pearl.

 

[vedwardsiii]

If your looking for a full qwerty then try Swiftkey 3. Its the closest that I have found and I like it a lot. I too am coming from a long line of Blackberry full qwerty phones.

 

[Erievon]

I don't know if it's a Sense or an Android thing, but under the keyboard settings on my Dinc2 (stock 2.3.4), I have the option of a "compact" keyboard in the language and keyboard settings. I never noticed it until just the other day, so I selected it just to see what it did, and sure enough, it came up like a BB SureType keyboard, two letters per key. I don't care for it (didn't care for it on my BB Storm either). Poke around in your settings, might be there? Then again it could be part of HTC Sense. This is the only android I've ever owned so I just don't know.

 

[edenbisdee7215]

Yeah Swift key is fine. it is closest to what you require.

 

[Bigt2003]

I use TouchPal. Its free from the market and works better than swiftkey.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[jean15paul]

I use TouchPal. Its free from the market and works better than swiftkey.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

"Works better than Swiftkey"??? I've used both and I wholeheartedly disagree. I suspect that a lot of people would. You can say that you like it better than SwiftKey. But saying that it "works better" is presenting you opinion as fact. (Similarly, I understand that I can't say that Swiftkey "works better" than Touchpal.)

I'm just saying

 

[Xopher]

TouchPal has a condensed keyboard mode similar to the BlackBerry SureType keyboard. It also has predictive typing, although it takes a while for it to learn your typing style.

Smart Keyboard Pro also has a compressed layout (although isn't free). It also has text prediction and AutoText (like BlackBerry). From my experience, it is probably the keyboard closest to the BlackBerry experience.

Personally, I found that although initially, typing like I was still on my BlackBerry made the conversion easier, moving to a different keyboard that takes advantage of all the Android capabilities made for a better experience. There is something about swiping through words with Swype, TouchPal, or FlexT9 that really speeds up the touchscreen typing, and text prediction of SwiftKey (along with FlexT9, TouchPal, and others) is rather nice as well.

 

[jean15paul]

Ford what it's worth, Crackberry Kevin tried a bunch of keyboards on the Android leg of his Mobile Nations world tour and decided on SwiftKey 3. He did say that he decreased the long press time and after he did that he really liked it. (A good tip by the way.)

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums

 

[Nickerz]

Will the Android native keyboard (or any of the others mentioned here like SwiftKey) allow for 'Word Substituion' like BlackBerry has? For example, if I type the letters "ie" and then press the space key on my BlackBerry, it will automatically insert "i.e.," or "th" inserts "Thank you," and I can add these myself.

 

[Xopher]

The native keyboard doesn't have the AutoText feature to change things like "ty" into "thank you".

Smart Keyboard Pro is about the only keyboard I have found that has AutoText.

 

[youngville718]

Which blackberry did you move from if it was the storm then better keyboard to me resembles it the most best keyboard imo also not available in the playstore tho but you can get it from Amazon

Sent from my SPH-D710BST using Tapatalk 2

 

[Bigt2003]

OK, in my opinion TouchPal works better than Swiftkey. Is that better?

Try this versionhttp://db.tt/WSwkhjdY.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[PicomatStudios]

>>Smart Keyboard Pro is about the only keyboard I have found that has AutoText.

Our app, Magic Keyboard Pro, has this too - there's a free version which you can try though auto-text is Pro-only.