Best keyboard for Nexus One?

t0ph0id · 02-09-2010, 12:45 PM

Aside from Swype?

cred05 · 02-09-2010, 12:48 PM

I'm using the HTC Sense keyboard and I like it. Resolution is a little crappy but I can deal with it.

defiantbeast · 02-09-2010, 12:57 PM

Ive used the HTC_IME keyboard on my last 3 android phones and its always been very reliable. Better Keyboard is also a good keyboard but it will cost you, and recently swype keyboard has garnered alot of followers try them all and see what best suits you remember that with better keyboard you have 24hrs to try it and if its not for you just return it.

Rusty! · 02-09-2010, 01:01 PM

Swype is indeed good, but for some reason, I really like the standard keyboard.

SnotF · 02-09-2010, 01:01 PM

a link would be helpful, its not in the appstore...

grainysand · 02-09-2010, 01:08 PM

I use Better Keyboard. Swype annoyed me for no real reason, but I only tried it for a few minutes. Might give it another whirl.

SnotF · 02-09-2010, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grainysand

I use Better Keyboard. Swype annoyed me for no real reason, but I only tried it for a few minutes. Might give it another whirl.

understandable. I was OK with it till I tried it in landscape. why anyone would think its a good idea to rearrange a standard keyboard is beyond me... and as one of the major selling points for me was voice 2 text not having that button was a total dealbreaker.

grainysand · 02-09-2010, 03:59 PM

Right, gave Swype another try. I like it now but, as you say, landscape Swype is a big no-no. Holy hell, that spacebar placement.

t0ph0id · 02-09-2010, 04:17 PM

I'm going to give Better Keyboard a go for a while.

glennjr15 · 02-15-2010, 02:18 AM

"Swype" is the way to go. The new version that fixed the bugs for the N1 is awesome! I had downloaded "Better Keyboard" because I had a Blackberry Pearl, and LOVED it's keypad. Unfortunately Better Keyboard's condensed QWERTY keypad is not intuitive at all, and you never get the word you are trying to type. (Even after messing with custom dictionary)

I hope that someone who was a "Pearl Lover" creates another condensed keyboard that is intuitive, and works like the original. If that happens, I may jump ship; until then, Swype it is... Go to this forum topic, and click the corresponding link.

Swype Works!!! "Landscape" and "No Errors"

yakboy · 02-15-2010, 03:04 AM

Personally i found the stock keyboard almost unusable, tried better keyboard which was also dreadful only in a new and exciting way to the stock.

after reading this thread I'm now using the HTC keyboard and its great. would love to have it in hires but will cope for now.

I've been a blackberry user for years and am quite the thumb typer. before this nexus one I was using an iPhone and I was actually faster typing on that than on a BB bold, markedly faster. the iPhone keyboard is truly awesome.

I love my nexus one but text input is little better than a Samsung toco. not really good enough.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

Fatal Exception · 02-15-2010, 03:32 AM

I love the stock keyboard, and I have pretty big fingers. I tried swype but I hated my finger blocking the view to the keyboard when I wanted to know what to swype to next.

yakboy · 02-15-2010, 05:26 AM

Quote:

I love the stock keyboard, and I have pretty big fingers. I tried swype but I hated my finger blocking the view to the keyboard when I wanted to know what to swype to next.

Really? if I attempted any sort of pace at all with the stock i got complete nonsense. It was like the CPU priority for the kb was behind everything else. unless I slowed to hunt and peck speed it would literally not get a single word.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

MartinS · 02-15-2010, 06:12 AM

HTC/Android are still behind Apple in terms of Keyboard - both in terms of Keyboard usage and word prediction in my opinion.

I will say it is improving though. The Hero was a pig to type on compared to the Nexus.

xoutlaw · 02-15-2010, 11:22 AM

trick to swype is the settings. play with them then try it again. also dont try to actually hit every letter perfectly.

what29 · 02-15-2010, 12:18 PM

i agree with most, i use swype exclusively now. the first time i installed it i tried it for 3-4 minutes and unistalled it. then a week later decided to give it a fair try and absolutly love it. while it is not as easy when you have to type numbers due to the strange layout typing words is easier than anything i have found on the iphone or on the android market

cyberbob25 · 02-15-2010, 03:49 PM

I'm still trying to get used to swype as well. Find it very hard to use for uncommon words/acronyms that I don't use enough to put in the dictionary, but whenever I go back to the stock keyboard, I find myself still trying to swipe words.

I am starting to really like smart keyboard.

AnotherFatalEpic · 02-15-2010, 08:05 PM

I really like the idea of SWYPE. But, ONLY when I'm not in landscape. Does anyone know if you can disable it for landscape in the settings? If I could disable it for landscape I would download it immediately.

I like the stock landscape keyboard, I can type pretty fast with it, except that lately I started realizing that even if I hit letters next to what I really wanted to hit, the words would still come out right. Then, I started getting lazy, and accidentally hitting "." instead of "space" which slowed me down a lot.

But I can type at like 30 wpm which is good I think for a phone. If I could type real-keyboard speed (like 80 wpm) I would be ecstatic, but I don't expect to get THAT close to a real keyboard. My last one had a physical keyboard and I was doing like 1 word a minute, lol, well I'm exaggerating but having to press the little tiny buttons took forever.

Whats the difference between better keyboard and the stock one? I understand people considering SWYPE because you input text a whole different way. But I don't get what the difference is with the other keyboards...

sewred · 02-15-2010, 08:29 PM

I like swype and the standard keyboard as well. Swype is fun to type on, but I still can't get the caps to work.

yakboy · 02-17-2010, 07:12 AM

Two days in with Swype and I'm impressed. I'm still not up to speed with it yet but I'm fairly confident that I'll get super quick with it one day. Bizarrely it's quicker to write longer swords with it than short ones!

worth persevering with if you ask me

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

wmm · 02-17-2010, 01:05 PM

I've been using ShapeWriter and found it to be pretty good. Recently I tried out SlideIT, though, and think it's substantially better. It makes many fewer mistakes guessing what word I tried to trace, plus it has a full set of symbols on its symbol keyboard (multiple screens' worth), plus it has user-programmable abbreviations, plus it works with Dataviz Documents to Go. It has a real "shift" key, too, as opposed to ShapeWriter's somewhat kludgy post-facto "change case" button.

If and when the Swype company decides to release a version of Swype I'll take a look at it. Currently, all the copies of Swype in circulation are pirated and released against the company's wishes -- they only sell to handset manufacturer, not end users -- and as a software developer myself, it would be hypocritical of me to install a piece of pirated software. In the meantime, I'm happy with SlideIT; it's hard to imagine that I'd like Swype much better.

SnotF · 02-17-2010, 01:12 PM

someone link me to the sense keyboard plz?

ikon · 02-17-2010, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnotF

someone link me to the sense keyboard plz?

[APP MOD] HTC_IME (Keyboard) custom languages (both high and low resolution) - xda-developers

Get the hi-res version for the N1. Works pretty good for me so far.

rori · 02-17-2010, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ikon

[APP MOD] HTC_IME (Keyboard) custom languages (both high and low resolution) - xda-developers

Get the hi-res version for the N1. Works pretty good for me so far.

this is a realy cool job!! - whished just, that speech input would work ..

mi_canuck · 02-18-2010, 10:02 AM

Word of caution - I installed HTC keyboard that is posted in another thread in this forum, and personally didn't like it. But after uninstalling, things got wonky with my Nexus. Minor, but still some issues. ATK - the fonts got all small. BatteryLife - the coloured separation bars got all messed up.

I did a hard reset to fix. Luckily, I have online backup setup with my Gmail account. I personally won't be installing anything HTC anymore.

Just FYI - not to tell people to not do it, but I had weird things happen from installing the HTC keyboard.

Markdental · 02-18-2010, 10:05 AM

Smart Keyboard Pro, best by far.

I have tried HTC, Better keyboard, Swype, etc... Smart is the fastest as long as you don't need voice recognition. Multi-touch FTW!!

NexusMMM · 02-18-2010, 10:15 AM

I've tried them all and I keep going back to stock. There is always a deal breaker issue with one of them that causes me to say no way...

mi_canuck · 02-18-2010, 10:25 AM

I'm with you on that...

I just like the dark stock colour of the OE keyboard...

I didn't care for the symbols showing on the keys either with the HTC keyboard - found it distracting personally. Plus, I found the auto-correct suggestion box obscured the typing window. Kinda dumb. Anyways, it's got cool features, but I like the stock kb more. That's just me.

inspiron41 · 02-18-2010, 12:06 PM

I currently have Swype installed. I love it a lot and i think it's an innovating piece of keypad. But the one thing i hate about it is typing numbers and all those extra items.

But the one keyboard i missed so much when i came from mytouch 3g was TouchPal keyboard. It was really great. However, the company, Cootek, failed to release an update since september. I backup the .apk file once i upgraded to the Nexus. I tried to installed, but the TouchPal application did not resize correctly to the larger Nexus resolution. The keyboard only covers like 75% of the screen in both landscape and portrait. I still have the .apk if anyone wants to play with it.

If anyone hasnt heard of touchpal. It gives the user the option to use three different keyboard layout - qwerty, blackberry, and telephone. I used the qwerty. The two things i love about is that every thing on the main layout page is all you needed. So if you want to capitalized a letter, you hold your finger over the letter and fling it up. And if you want to type a number, you fling down (there's a second keypad print bellow the main qwerty pad). So it made it easy to type out numbers without scrolling through pages. It also allowed the user to use different keyboard languages. and it does a nice job with word correction as you type.

anyone, here's a demo of it from youtube:

YouTube - TouchPal Soft Keyboard for Android v1

bitxboi · 02-18-2010, 01:35 PM

I think Better Keyboard has the same three keyboard options, and it will fit 100% the size of your Nexus One screen

ManMythLegend · 02-18-2010, 03:41 PM

Default.

Frankly all the other keyboards have major shortcomings..

HTC-IME breaks some voice functionality of N1 as of now.
Better Keyboard is laggy and voice input icon takes 5 seconds to some up.
Smart keyboard has an atrocious word prediction method.
Swype is FANTASTIC for portrait. But lacks voice input and landscape view lacks an option to have default or regular KB.

Not sure why people love Iphone keyboards so much. No user dictionary and avg word correction. No gestures. Only thing good is that its a few pixels taller in landscape.