One area not all smartphone manufacturers get right is the keyboard. It seems to easy, and yet it’s also very difficult, finding the right formula for a perfect touch-based on-screen keyboard. While there are plenty of paid options available on Google Play to use, it’s good to see Google’s own keyboard is now there too.
Originally one of the talked up features of Google’s Android “Jelly Bean” and available in the Google Nexus 4, the stock Android keyboard is now available to anyone with an Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” and higher on either a smartphone or tablet.
The keyboard is, as Google puts it, a way to make “text input smart and easy,” and while the keys are spaced well, we’ve always liked this keyboard because its word suggestions are pretty good and the gesture-based typing (think Swype) isn’t bad either.
If you don’t want to plonk the money down on SwiftKey, one of our other favourite on-screen keyboard replacements, you might want to check this one out, as the price is right, and if you don’t like it, you can just switch it off.
