Gadgetory

well how's it going there everybody's John Q here from TechnoBuffalo calm and welcome to what's the apps a simple little app review show here in TechnoBuffalo with a rather fancy name don't you think today we're going to venture into Android OS to take a look at an application called smart keyboard thanks to the totally awesome John venture for sending me the Google Nexus One so that I can finally experience Android first hand now I am a very big UI and functionality person and to be honest I'm still having some trouble adjusting to Android OS mainly because I've become so used to you know the other guy right off the bat I noticed that the typing experience wasn't as fluid maybe it's because the Nexus 1 is pretty old compared to the newer guys but the multi-touch screen didn't feel like it could keep up with my obscene tap-tap-tapping and on top of that I didn't really like how the default keyboard looked from what I've heard I knew Android was very very customizable you can change the icons the keyboard layout whatever so I started doing some research on keyboard alternatives after reading a bunch of reviews and downloading various apps from the marketplace I settled on an app called Smart keyboard and let me tell you this thing is a masterpiece anything and everything you can think of to customize your keyboard you can do with smart keyboard the only thing that's really missing would be an implementation of a swipe style typing feature which is totally understandable because you know copyright and whatnot there were three things I knew I wanted to do right away change the keyboard skin change the keyboard sounds and somehow make the spacebar bigger smart keyboard has a great selection of skins to choose from most of them look very default and very native which is something I really really appreciate in terms of functionality the HTC or the Samsung skin would probably be the best ones personally I stuck with a black skin to give my Nexus that Windows Phone 7 feel cuz I'm cool like that next keyboard sounds ever since I started using a mechanical keyboard I've become very particular on type of mechanics and feedback plus I really taken a liking to that awesome clicky clicky sound okay the default Android keyboard sounds aren't bad but I wanted something a little bit less tinny sounding smart Keyboard lesson choose between the default Android sound the iPhone sound and the Samsung sound the Samsung sound seems to work best for me as it's loud enough to be audible but it's not too loud where it's annoying lastly the spacebar I always seem to miss a spacebar when I type I have no idea why androids default spacebar size is a little squish as there's that voice input button but with smart keyboard I was able to remove it plus I can move the comma and the period to the symbols area for maximum keyboard pwnage beautiful as an added bonus you can also increase a patting size on the bottom for more room you can go totally crazy with this one oh yes the things I mentioned only scratched the surface of what smart keyboard can do you can also do t9 mode compact mode arrows transparency key height user dictionary smart dictionary additional language support gestures calibration and more skins all of these fancy text prediction options and much much much much more best of all it's totally free the only downside is that the free version has a pop-up every now and then saying oh if you don't want to see this pop-up again buy the full version I didn't say that but but that's a gist of what it said according to market the paid version is 276 Canadian to be honest I only saw that pop-up thing once so it's not too bad but I'm probably going to pick up a pro version anyways as should you because I rate smart Keyboard a solid 5 out of 5 for its functionality usability customizability and because the skins they look really really pretty so if you want to jazz up your Android typing experience seriously check out smart keyboard and thank you very much for checking out this episode of what see apps this is John Q from TechnoBuffalo have yourselves a fantastic day now see you guys next time take care