Compared to your full-sized desktop keyboard, typing on your phone's tiny software keyboard just plain sucks. Luckily, Android users can choose from a myriad of different keyboards, meaning you can find one that caters to your typing style. Here's how to find the right one for you.


Photo remixed from an original by Mike McKay.

Android has quite a few alternative keyboards in the Market, but choosing one can be overwhelming. You don't necessarily need to try them all, though. There are a few main styles of typing on a phone, and everyone usually has one that they prefer—whether that be swiping over the keys, using advanced text prediction, or just going to town on a traditional point-and-tap keyboard. Below, we'll discuss the different kinds of typists and recommend a few best-in-class keyboards for each. In each case, I'll note our favorite of the bunch, too. That way, if you don't know what kind of typing you prefer, you can download the "best" of each category, decide which you like, and then explore the other keyboards in that area more closely if you're still not satisfied.


Style One: The Tap Typist

How the Tap Typist Works: This is the style that most of you are probably used to, since it's the "default" type of keyboard on most phones, and what everyone used before fancy text prediction and alternative keyboards were invented. The Tap Typist taps each letter separately, typing out the entire word and just barreling through text as fast as possible. It doesn't necessarily have the potential to be as fast as some of the other methods, but it's also very similar to typing on a desktop keyboard, so you don't need to work at "acclimating" yourself to another typing style.

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The Best Point-and-Tap Keyboards: Sadly, no Android keyboards in this category can match up the the glory that is the iPhone keyboard, but a few come close. Our favorites include:

Android 2.3's default keyboard : If you have Gingerbread on your phone and you're running a stock ROM (that is, you don't have a separate UI like HTC Sense or Motoblur), this keyboard comes with your phone. This keyboard is easy to type on, has multitouch capabilties (thus letting you type faster), and has been "reshaped" from the old keyboard for better aiming. If you don't have Gingerbread, or if you have a special UI on top of Gingerbread, you can download a slightly modded version of the Gingerbread keyboard from the Android Market, both in free paid

: If you have Gingerbread on your phone and you're running a stock ROM (that is, you don't have a separate UI like HTC Sense or Motoblur), this keyboard comes with your phone. This keyboard is easy to type on, has multitouch capabilties (thus letting you type faster), and has been "reshaped" from the old keyboard for better aiming. If you don't have Gingerbread, or if you have a special UI on top of Gingerbread, you can download a slightly modded version of the Gingerbread keyboard from the Android Market, both in Smart Keyboard

HTC's IME keyboard: If you have an HTC device, the default keyboard that comes with it is pretty darn good—far better than the default pre-Gingerbread keyboard. It isn't quite on the level of Android 2.3's keyboard, but it has a few extra features, like arrows that let you sift through text and a button that hides the keyboard. It also has the hold-to-insert-symbol feature mentioned above. If you don't have an HTC device, you can download the HTC IME keyboard


Our Favorite: Smart Keyboard is probably the best of the three, what with all the options and tweaks available. However, if you just want to try out the point-and-tap method, you might not want to pay $3 for it yet—so grab the free version of the Gingerbread keyboard and give it a shot. Then, if you like it, you can try out the others and see how they fare.

Style Two: The Text Predictor

How the Text Predictor Works: Text prediction is one of the few things the original Android keyboard did right, and if you really love having that bar across the top of your keys guessing the words you want to type, the Android Market has a few special keyboards for you. These keyboards put a specific emphasis on text prediction, learning from you as you type and serving you the most likely words in any given situation. They're especially useful for people that type the same sentences over and over again ("okay, see you soon").


The Best Text Predicting Keyboards: While the vast majority of Android keyboards feature text prediction, only a few focus on it so much that it becomes a defining characteristic. These include:


Our Favorite: The key with the predictive keyboards is to give them a chance to "break in" before you judge them. They'll learn as you type, and the more you type, the better they'll become, so don't give up on them too quickly. Give each at least a week or two before you decide that one isn't for you. Both are free, and both are good ones to try out. I'd recommend giving SwiftKey a go first—it's well established, and is sure to give you a good idea of what this kind of keyboard will offer.

Style Three: The Swiper

How the Swiper Works: We've begun to see a surge in popularity for "swiping" keyboards—that is, keyboards that let you type by swiping between the keys rather than tapping them. There's a good reason for it, too: They're fast. Really fast. They might not be as fast out-of-the-box as the Gingerbread-style keyboards, but once you learn all their little tricks, you can blaze through texts at blinding speeds.


The Best Swiping Keyboards: With this keyboard style's popularity on the rise, you have a few choices. The best include:


Our Favorite: Each of the swiping keyboards has a pretty fervent community behind it, so it's hard to pick just one. I personally love Swype, but lots of folks swear by SlideIT. Swype, unfortunately, is a bit harder to come by, and SlideIT is a bit expensive for a keyboard that you don't know you'll like, so I'd grab the trial of Ultra Keyboard to give swiping a chance. If you like it at all, grab one of the other two. If you can get it, we seriously recommend Swype.

Style Four: The Adventurous

What Adventurous Typers Prefer: These typers are a wild card, preferring experimental typing methods that save time, but take a lot of getting used to. Often this involves a completely nontraditional keyboard layout and an unintuitive, but very fast method of typing.


The Most Interesting Experimental Keyboards: They're all a little different, but if none of the above are really doing it for you, we recommend trying one of these out:


Our Favorite: We're pretty wowed by how wacky 8pen is. While there's definitely a learning curve, you get used to it a bit faster than you think you would, and if you have patience, there's a good chance you can get faster with 8pen than you would with a regular keyboard. If the other keyboards are making you pull your hair out, you might as well go nuts and try out 8pen for a really new experience.

This is not an exhaustive list of keyboards, but it is a list of the ones we think are the most worth looking at. You can head to the Market and check out others like the super skinnable Better Keyboard, or the Gingerbread-based Perfect Keyboard, but take our word for it—it doesn't get much better than the above. If you've got your own favorite keyboard, let us know what it is and why it works for you in the comments.