Kim Barloso

Download Keyboard for Android Phone

2022-10-15

The keyboard is the intermediary between the mobile device and the user. The faster you enter text and press keys, the better. Today we are going to choose a good Android keyboard.

Whether you have a phone or a tablet, the add-on should be flexible, nice, adaptable, support design themes and emoticons. Obviously the Russian language has to be included and preferably all of these should be free for download.

Contents :

    See also:

    GO Keyboard - the most "popular" keyboard for smartphones

    The GO Keyboard is not necessary to tell for the first time. This shell is recognized as the best app-2020 in 10 countries. Therefore, it is automatically advised as a beautiful and functional replacement for the standard Android keyboard. 200 million users have already downloaded the app. The rating of 4.5 says something.

    The keyboard offers a lot of attractive themes

    GO Keyboard makes your text input fast and easy thanks to its hints. If you make a typo, it will suggest alternative words and you will easily correct your grammar mistake on the go. Another trick that's great for speeding up typing is voice input. It is worth trying on your phone.

    Supported emoticons and stickers, tens of thousands of keyboard themes and hundreds of fonts - but not all of them support Russian localization. By the way, if you use the standard font it won't be a problem to switch to Russian - it is fully supported by GO Keyboard as well as 60+ other languages.

    In addition to the QWERTY layout, you can also use non-standard QWERTZ or AZERTY, which are not so much useful for typing on phones but on tablets.

    You can download the Android keyboard for free, the ad-free GO Keyboard version costs only $5.99.

    What we liked: What we did not like:
    • Works without error in any application
    • Frequently comes with firmware
    • Built-in speech recognition, it really works
    • Speech recognition on slippery surfaces
    • Hard to use with one hand
    • No sliding between words
    • No touch typing
    • Special characters are poorly supported

    Download Go Keyboard

    SwiftKeyboard A free and smart smartphone add-on

    Many keyboards are kind of competing with each other. Not only does SwiftKey hold a similar level of popularity as GO Keyboard, but it also offers its own unique chips. That being said, SwiftKey for Android is completely free and there's no trickery involved.

    SwiftKey Keyboard - A beautiful keyboard with themes for every taste

    As far as customization is concerned, SwiftKey Keyboard is able to cover all requirements: color schemes and beautiful design themes are provided here. Emoticons are available, also they can be removed altogether if not needed. You can customize the height and width of the keys. For example, if you need a large keyboard, you are very welcome, everything can be adjusted.

    More than 150 different language layouts are supported - accordingly an autocorrection is provided. If no more than 5 languages are used, the switching between languages can be done automatically.

    SwiftKey Flow speeds up text input. It offers not point-based typing on the keyboard, but a sliding through the letters (a video demonstration of the input is available on the website). This is a handy feature adopted by other add-ons on mobile OS - Android and iOS.

    What we liked: What we did not like:
    • Good adaptive alternative to Gboard
    • Automatic punctuation
    • Predictive text input works unpredictably

    Download Android keyboard

    Gboard - A laconic keyboard from Google with integrated search

    A fast and reliable keyboard for your phone from the search giant Google. Predictably, a search engine is built into the interface. But it would be foolish to assume that this is the end of acceleration methods. There's also voice typing, a slick typing function, and a variety of gestures.

    Google Phone Keyboard

    Predictive typing is quite handy. Gboard builds a personal dictionary that is replenished over time. Unnecessary words from the dictionary can be removed by long tap on the corresponding word. Moreover, if you are using multiple mobile devices, you can sync the dictionaries between them.

    There are all the modern casual features, such as stickers, and gifoks (all of them can be requested directly from the search engine). Change of design themes is supported (there is an iPhone keyboard for example). At the same time, Gboard is not a very customizable keyboard - there is a certain rigor, which many users benefit from.

    Multilinguality is well developed: 120 languages are supported right now. Switching between languages on the phone can be done without you being involved. Words can be translated into any language via Google Translate.

    What we liked: What we did not like:
    • Laconic design
    • Operative updates
    • Comfortable personal dictionary
    • No button to quickly hide panel
    • Slow devices can slow down

    Download keyboard to phone

    Swype: Text input with gestures and sliding

    The Swype keyboard, judging by its name, has decided to stand out with its sliding input method. However, this feature is not exclusive anymore, so let's look at the other sides of this add-on.

    Swype - Russian keyboard with an alternative input method

    The Swype keyboard accepts input from two languages - while typing you will be offered variants from two language sets simultaneously. This is convenient because there is no need to switch between the layouts. Two languages are the norm, for example, for the Russian-English combination. Russian language is downloaded as a package when installing it on the phone.

    Swype takes hints from the dictionary, similarly to other android keyboards. In addition to guessing individual words, this application can suggest, say, the ending of a phrase. Personal dictionary is synchronized via the cloud with other connected mobile devices - so you will not have to replenish it after reinstalling the keyboard or perform manual dictionary recovery. All you need to do during installation is bind your Google Profile.

    With more than 100 languages, layouts adapted for tablets and other devices - you can trim your keyboard by disabling unnecessary keys. So if you need a user-friendly keyboard for your tablet, Swype is the right choice.

    Hands off the phone, you can use voice input. To activate Dragon recognition, just press a single microphone button and dictate the text to be added in the text field.

    Of course, the keyboard design themes and emoticons are present here in full.

    Download Swype

    Chrooma Keyboard - A coloured, pretty and flexible add-on for your phone

    Chrooma is another keyboard frequently flashed in app reviews. It supports over 1000 emoticons, beautiful themes, gifs, stickers and other joys that come in handy when communicating quickly in social networking messengers. You can change color, layouts, set a nice background for the underlay.

    To speed up typing, you can use different "shortcuts": set up hotkeys and swipe to perform text operations (copy and cut). Flexible clipboard saving in multiple cells, paired character substitution and more. For fast and smooth typing you can activate the Chrooma Keyboard Curve - in general this is the already known under another name for sliding the keys.

    Contextual autocomplete, correction of grammatical errors. Vocabulary stored in the cloud can suggest the following words. More than 150 languages are declared to be supported - however it is clear that this is fundamentally unimportant. Russian and English are available. True, you need to download the Russian keyboard for Android to work fully. The update package called Russian for Chrooma Keyboard is available on Google Play from the same developer.

    The Chrooma Keyboard contains ads as well as different add-ons which may be downloaded for free or purchased. After Chrooma is installed, the Android main screen displays news, so you should think about the usefulness of this keyboard on your phone.

    Download Chrooma Keyboard

    Smart keyboard Pro: The free Russian keyboard with emoticons and themes

    Lightweight and flexibly personalizable keyboard for your smartphone. Large number of skins, change of layout, sound and key height are adjustable, emoticons (emoji) are included with the application. Most of the Smart Keyboard features are available for free, although only in trial version.

    Smart Keyboard: the choice of design themes

    Other features of the Smart Keyboard mobile application:

    • T9 and other layouts are available for most world languages supported by Android
    • Full Russian language (also possible to add Russian language dictionary for auto-complete)
    • Built-in and additional keyboard themes with different colored backgrounds and keys, there are also iPhone skins (you can download them from Smart Keyboard developer on Google Play)
    • Flexible gesture customization, shortcuts and hotkeys
    • Voice input (available in Pro version)
    • Easy switching between different language layouts
    • Self-learning custom dictionary and autocomplete
    • Emoji, large selection of funny colored emoticons

    To install your keyboard, start the apk application, then follow the setup wizard. You will be asked to change the default input method, this can be done through the dialogue box displayed.

    What we liked: What we did not like:
    • Lots of layouts and easy to change
    • Fast performance on weak phones
    • The application is not updated anymore
    • Small dictionary

    Install the Smart Keyboard

    Kika Keyboard - Android emoji keyboard and beautiful design themes

    Free keyboard with huge customization possibilities. (Probably by this criterion, Kika Keyboard is the best keyboard for Android). Kika has thousands of emoticons, emoticons, stickers, gifs, sounds and themes to choose from. You can create your own themes by changing, say, the background. Keyboard is Internet-dependent, i.e. most add-ons have to be preloaded on the phone.

    Layout is also flexible, it's possible to change the layout on the tablet (QWERTY, QWERTZ or AZERTY on choice). Sliding typing, gesture input, voice input are supported.

    Predictive functions - auto-complete words and letters, emoticons.

    What we liked: What we did not like:
    • Fast performance
    • Flexible design themes and sounds
    • Some design themes fail
    • Advertising modules
    • Language can change to another

    Download Kika Keyboard

    Simple Keyboard - Fast and undemanding keyboard

    Compact keyboard, Saves RAM of your mobile device. Takes up less than 1 MB of your mobile memory. The app has no ads and requires minimal permissions. It is referred to as the Google Keyboard counterpart, with lower demands on the phone resources.

    The height of the keys can be adjusted to different screens, the number of rows of keys, choose design themes and customize the shell color scheme.

    Simple Keyboard widely supports gestures - delete, move the cursor. Modern casual features like gifs and emoticons are not present and are not expected to be. Unfortunately, no text correction is available either.

    AnySoftKeyboard - User-friendly keyboard with maximum customization

    AnnySoftKeyboard is a fine-tuned open-source modification of the Android keyboard. Supports emoji, emoticons, accelerates text input in any language.

    AnySoftKeyboard app features:

    • An alternative text input - gestures and slide layout. Multitouch and voice input is possible.
    • Swipe text input - no need to press each key, you can enter letters by sliding the keyboard.

    • Autocue system (predicative text input).
    • Autocue function - correct simple mistakes, typos, automatic capital and small letters substitution. No need to be distracted by correcting the words yourself.

    • Comfortable design themes (including free ones available for download on Google Play). Both dark and light color schemes available.

    • Flexible personalization. Possibility to create custom templates, change background, fonts, sound, effects and tones, key height / width.
    • Gif-keyboard - the application contains stickers and memes for any taste
    • A large selection of emoticons and emoji to convey emotions and save time
    • Smart answers (depending on the received answers) - speed up and save users time

    AnySoftKeyboard Keyboard is available in Russian, Cyrillic and dictionary versions are fully supported as well as English and many other locales. You will need to download additional language packs for them to work.

    Download AnySoftKeyboard

    Functional comparison

    GO Keyboard SwiftKey G-.board Swype Chrooma Smart keyboard Kika
    русская клавиатура + + + + + + +
    темы оформления + + + + + +
    смайлики (эмотиконы, эмодзи) + + + + + +
    стикеры (наклейки) + + + + + + +
    автодополнение и автокоррекция (варианты подстановки) + + + + + + +
    голосовой ввод текста + + +
    нестандартные (альтернативные) layouts + + +
    gestures and hotkeys +SwiftKey Flow (sliding typing and gestures) +(sliding method typing) + (slide typing)

    How to remove vibration from the Android keyboard

    When you enter text on the phone, the vibration is triggered. At first it is convenient, then it starts to get annoying little by little. Also annoying is that it cannot be switched off directly in the keyboard layout settings. Here is a step by step guide on how to quickly disable keyboard vibration on your Android keyboard:

    1. Go to Settings - General settings - section "Language and input".
    2. In the page that appears, select the keyboard you use
    3. Scroll through the list of keyboard options and uncheck the "Vibration on input".

    If you are using a Samsung, you may disable the Vibration as follows:

    1. Settings - General Settings - section Language and Input
    2. Internet Keyboard - Samsung Keyboard - Keyboard - Tap feedback - Vibration
    3. Slide the "Vibration" switch to the left

    It is possible to disable the vibration response on most devices with the latest Android versions. In older versions some settings may differ but we believe you will find it easily.

    Missing the keyboard on your Android (Samsung) - what to do?

    What to do if your Android keyboard is missing (and this application is a mega important one for many)? You can quickly reactivate the keyboard on the Samsung models, etc. by means of one of the following methods.

    The first one is to clear the cache.

    1. For this you have to go to the Settings - Applications - All.
    2. Locate the keyboard in the list
    3. Clear data - Clear cache and stop the application
    4. Reboot the phone

    The second way to enable the keyboard:

    1. Settings - Language
    2. Type - Keypad
    3. Type methods (Input method selection): here you enable the keyboard (check the box)

    The third way - download different (not default) keyboard for your phone.

    There are dozens of excellent keyboards for tablets and smartphones available on Google Play. Each of them can be a full-fledged replacement for a standard keyboard. Many of them are free to download, but require token money for add-ons. We advise you to read our review if you want to change your Android keyboard.

    How to install a keyboard on Android

    The standard Android keyboard does not suit all users. Although with each new OS version it improves (in terms of ergonomics, i.e. usability), in terms of customization the standard keyboard is severely limited. Thus you cannot download additional design themes, change the keytone, select the stickers and smiley faces.

    In order to install the additional keyboard you must:

    1. Download the desired application from Google Play
    2. Run the installer (usually right after download)
    3. Run the installed application by searching its name on the Android home screen.
    4. All further steps (changing the default keyboard and activation of another one through Android settings) will be described in the application window.

    How to change the Android keyboard

    If you have several alternate keyboards installed on your tablet or smartphone and would like to switch from your current keyboard layout to another, you may do it in two ways.

    1) Changing the Android keyboard is possible through the default settings in the Android OS. To change the current keyboard follow the steps:

    1. Go to Settings - General Settings - Language and Input
    2. Default Keyboard
    3. In the window "Keyboard Selection" select the keyboard you wish to have displayed when entering the text. It is sufficient to place the checkbox in front of its name.

    Changing the Android keyboard (Samsung Galaxy S8)

    2) It is also possible to change the keyboard directly through the settings of the installed Android keyboard - when launching the application. For this purpose

    1. Install the new keyboard by downloading it from Google Play or another web resource
    2. Follow the instructions of the step-by-step setup wizard integrated in the keyboard shell (usually the developers provide this possibility)
    3. Agree to the access permissions
    4. Activate the keyboard add-on

    FAQ

    I purchased an Asus Nexus 7 tablet running Android 4.4.4. - Gboard keyboard cannot be installed. What should I do, is there another keyboard that has the search function?

    Obviously, the Android version does not meet the system requirements. You should either update the OS version or download an old version of Gboard. Of the keyboards, we suggest you look at Swype and SwiftKey.

    How do I set the non-standard layout in GO Keyboard? I am used to reassigning buttons on the keyboard, and you mentioned this option in the article. Searched in the settings of the application - have not found.

    Change the layout by tapping on the name of the keyboard language. As for the layouts, it is possible to change the language layouts and their types. It is not possible to reassign the keys.

    What are emoticons and why are they used on the Android keyboard?

    Emocons are the emoji or emoticons. When you type emoticons, they are automatically converted into funny pictures. This way, one can quickly express emotions, moods, without having to decipher them.

    SwiftKey offers a keyboard with autocorrect function

    In SwiftKey, the autocorrect function is brought almost to perfection, that is, it offers a mechanism of adaptation to the user's style. To do this, it uses, what the hell, artificial intelligence. Autocorrect, word prompts and emoticons are selected based on previously entered words and characters. Even unique words like nicknames and slang are memorized by this keyboard and later shown among the input options on the phone. This way you not only speed up text input from the keyboard but also reduce typos on the phone.

    Are there any keyboards with hotkeys support on the phone?

    In Swype, gestures and hotkeys for text copy, paste are well configurable. You can adjust the behavior on long presses, set the delay interval. You can customize the vibration to your liking.

    “Hello. My name is Kim. I discovered that technology, when used with a purpose, can be pretty amazing. To share the wonder of tech, I’ve written for blogs like Appstorm.net and Time.com. With over three years of freelance writing experience in the technology and entertainment niche, I can write a storm about a software app, a cool browser extension, a new mobile device and other geek-centric stuf... “

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