Few users of Android gadgets realize that they can connect a keyboard or mouse to their devices, just like to a regular computer. Connecting these peripherals allows you to turn your smartphone or tablet into a real workstation. A keyboard will significantly increase comfort while typing, and a mouse can greatly simplify browsing.

Now you will learn how to connect a keyboard to your tablet. There are two ways to connect a keyboard to an Android tablet: with via USB OTG cable, which we have already discussed in the article about, and also using wireless interface Bluetooth.

How to connect a keyboard to an Android tablet using a USB OTG cable

The first method is to use a USB OTG cable. This is an addition to the USB 2.0 standard. This add-on allows you to connect various USB devices and to each other without using a computer. For this connection, a small adapter cable is used.

USB OTG cable can be used by most in different ways. For example, you can use it to connect a digital camera to a printer and print the pictures taken, or connect a flash drive to a mobile device.

In our case, we will connect the keyboard to the Android tablet. It's very easy to do. First, you need the USB OTG cable itself. This cable can be purchased at any store with mobile phones. When purchasing, pay attention to the cable. On one side of such a cable there should be a regular USB connector, and on the other a Micro USB connector. If the cable looks different, it will not suit you.

After you get the adapter you need, simply insert its Micro USB connector into your tablet (or smartphone, if you are connecting a keyboard to a smartphone) and then plug the USB cable from the keyboard into the other connector of the adapter. As a result, the tablet should detect the keyboard, and it should work. You don’t need to take any further actions, this should be enough to connect the keyboard to your Android tablet. Naturally, in order for everything to work out for you, the keyboard must have a USB cable. Keyboards with a PS/2 connector will not work.

By the way, there are special cases for tablets that are equipped with a built-in keyboard (see screenshot above). When using such a case, your tablet not only connects to the keyboard, it turns into a small laptop. After all, the keyboard and tablet are rigidly connected by a case, and using them in this format is much more convenient.

Connecting a keyboard to an Android tablet via Bluetooth

The second option for connecting a keyboard to an Android tablet is to use the Bluetooth wireless interface. Everyone knows that using Bluetooth you can transfer files and connect a headset, but not everyone knows that Bluetooth keyboards also connect perfectly to tablets and smartphones. At the same time, connecting a keyboard using Bluetooth is much easier than using a USB OTG cable.

In order to connect the keyboard, simply turn it on and then go to Android settings on your tablet. Here you need to find the Bluetooth section and enable the Bluetooth module. Your tablet should then find the Bluetooth keyboard and show it in the Bluetooth settings. Then you just have to select your keyboard in the tablet settings and it will automatically connect to it.

It should be noted that there are wireless keyboards with a Bluetooth interface and a radio interface. These are completely two different interfaces. Therefore, if you have a keyboard with a radio interface, you will not be able to connect it using Bluetooth. In this case, you need to connect the USB receiver from the keyboard to the tablet using a USB OTG cable.

Any tablet has a virtual keyboard. With its help it is convenient to write a message in social networks, send SMS or letter by mail. But when you need to type long texts, this function becomes insufficient. Therefore, it is not surprising that soon after tablets went on sale, virtual keyboards also arrived in stores.

These accessories enhance the tablet's capabilities and turn it into a small laptop. Most of them are compact in size. This makes it possible to always carry this accessory with you.

Selection criteria

Manufacturers of gadget accessories think well appearance and functionality of devices. Therefore, your choice should be based on your preferences. You definitely have to like an external keyboard. It should be convenient for her to use. But you shouldn’t choose a case just by its appearance.

It is important that the accessory fits the tablet; it does not lose its functionality and appearance after a few months. This can be determined by its technical characteristics.

It is important to pay attention to the following:

  • connection type;
  • material of manufacture;
  • number of clicks.

The connection type is the most important characteristic. If you buy a device and are not able to connect it to a tablet, then such a purchase will be pointless.

There are five connection types:


If the device is of the “book” type, it is important that it is made of genuine leather. Since this accessory is constantly moving with the owner, it wears out quickly. Artificial materials will very quickly lose their appearance.

It is necessary to pay attention to the “number of clicks” characteristic if you have to print a lot. A regular device is designed for 5 million clicks. This is enough for about a year of active work.

Video: Wireless keyboard for iOS and Android tablets from Microsoft

External keyboard from Logitech

Logitech keyboards have long been known to all gamers and ordinary users computers. This company produces devices in different price categories. Among its products you can find both budget options and expensive fancy cases. And of course, she could not help but please her fans with functional devices for modern gadgets.

Photo: functional device for modern gadgets

One of the company's latest innovations is a wireless keyboard. Logitech K480, which can connect to three devices at once. And to switch between them, just turn the round switch.

Photo: Logitech K480 wireless keyboard

The Logitech K480 went on sale quite recently, so few people were able to try it out. The more popular model at the moment is the Logitech K810.

It works with Android tablets via bluetooth, supports various operating systems and has an interesting design. The backlit keyboard makes it possible to use it in the dark. Logitech K810 can connect to 3 different devices at the same time.

Three main types of keyboards

All external keyboards for Android tablet can be divided into three types:

  • docking station;
  • case;
  • remote controller.

Each of these types has its own characteristics and advantages.

Dock station

This is a plastic or metal device that has significant dimensions. Do not buy a docking station to carry it with you. It is quite heavy and resembles a regular keyboard.

Docking stations are convenient to use. Many models have different functions, not just typing buttons. There is also a touchpad. Manufacturers often provide special buttons to control Android.

Case

It looks like a book cover. A thin keyboard is built into one side, and a tablet is attached to the other. This case is convenient to carry with you, as it is light and compact. You can put it in a small bag like a book. The only drawback is its flexibility, so it is impossible to print on an uneven surface, on your weight or on your knees.

Remote controller

It connects to the device only via bluetooth. The remote control has built-in batteries. Most models are equipped with a manipulator that replaces the mouse.

Keyboard for Android tablet and its price

The price of a keyboard depends, first of all, on its characteristics. A simple option that is suitable for home use, can be bought for modest money. Such devices are universal and can be used with many tablets. For example, a logitech k480 in different stores costs from 3,000 to 4,000 rubles.

Many manufacturers of well-known tablets produce original keyboards that fit one or more models. They are much more expensive, but with them you can fully control Android. For example, Keyboard Case for Samsung GALAXY Tab S 8.4 SM costs more than 5,000 rubles. And the original keyboard for Sony Xperia Tablet Z2 BKB10 can be bought for less than 4,000 rubles.

Photo: stylish keyboard design

An external keyboard for a tablet will become an indispensable assistant when you need to type large texts. But the choice of this accessory should be approached responsibly. It must be combined with the tablet and please the eye. And its quality must correspond to the operating conditions.

As you already understood from the title of the article, today we will talk about connecting a physical keyboard to a tablet, or, more precisely, to an Android tablet. It is easier and more familiar to work with a large volume of text using standard keyboard. To do this, let's consider several ways to connect wireless keyboard to the tablet.

USB connection

Let me note right away that this method is not suitable for everyone. To connect a keyboard and other USB devices, the tablet must have a feature called USB-host or simply OTG. You also need to take care of the availability USB cable OTG. This is what he looks like.

If such a cable was included in your kit, rest assured that your tablet or smartphone supports OTG.

Today, the vast majority of tablets support connectivity external device input at the hardware level. The USB keyboard itself can be bought for quite a price. budget price, fortunately there is a large selection on the market.

Let's start connecting:

  1. We just need to insert the OTG cable into the microUSB connector of the tablet, and connect the keyboard itself to the OTG cable socket.
  2. The input device is automatically connected and initialized. You can start typing.

Bluetooth connection

This method has significant advantages - versatility (almost 100% of modern tablet computers have a Bluetooth module) and convenience due to the absence of wires.

Let's look at the procedure for connecting using radio communication - Bluetooth:


The procedure on a tablet and phone will be similar.

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

It doesn’t matter whether you have a phone or a tablet - the keyboard add-on should be flexible, beautiful, adaptable, support themes and emojis, emoticons. It is clear that the Russian language should be included in the kit and it is desirable that all this be free for download.

Review participants:

GO Keyboard - the most popular keyboard for Android smartphones

This isn't the first time we've talked about the GO Keyboard. This shell was recognized as the best application of 2016 in 10 countries. Therefore, it is automatically recommended as a beautiful and functional replacement for the standard Android keyboard. 200 million users have already downloaded the application. A rating of 4.5 points says something.

GO Keyboard offers many beautiful themes

GO Keyboard speeds up text entry on Android with hints. If you make a mistake, the application will substitute alternative words - and you can easily correct your grammatical error on the go. Another feature that is convenient for speeding up typing is voice text input. It's at least worth trying on your phone.

GO Keyboard supports emoticons and stickers, tens of thousands of keyboard themes and hundreds of fonts - although not all of them support Russian localization. However, if you use standard font, then switching to Russian will not be difficult - it is fully supported by GO Keyboard along with 60+ other languages.

Emoticons are, in other words, emoji, they are also emoticons. When you enter emoticons, GO Keyboard automatically converts them into funny pictures. This way you can quickly express emotions and mood, without decoding.

In addition to the QWERTY layout, you can install non-standard options like QWERTZ or AZERTY, which are convenient for typing not so much on phones as on tablet devices.

SwiftKey Keyboard is a free and smart keyboard add-on for your smartphone

Many Android keyboards seem to compete with each other. SwiftKey not only maintains a similar level of popularity as GO Keyboard, but also offers its own unique features. At the same time, SwiftKey keyboard for Android is completely free, and there is no trick to it.

SwiftKey Keyboard - a beautiful keyboard with themes for every taste

For example, the auto-correction function here has been brought almost to perfection, namely: SwiftKey offers a mechanism for adapting to the user’s style. For this, artificial intelligence is used, no joke. Auto-correction, word suggestions and emoticons are selected taking into account previously entered words and characters. This keyboard remembers even such unique words as nicknames and slang and subsequently displays them among the input options on the phone. Thus, you not only speed up typing on the keyboard, but also reduce the number of typos on your smartphone.

When it comes to customization, the SwiftKey Keyboard can cover all requirements: it provides color schemes and beautiful design themes. Emoticons are available, and they can also be removed altogether if not needed. You can adjust the height and width of the keys. For example, if you need a large keyboard, please, everything can be changed.

This keyboard for Android supports more than 150 language layouts - accordingly, auto-correction is included. If no more than 5 languages ​​are used, the transition between them can occur automatically.

SwiftKey Flow makes typing faster. It does not offer point typing on the keyboard, but sliding through letters (a video demonstrating the input is available on the website). This is a convenient feature adopted by other keyboard add-ons on mobile operating systems - Android and iOS.

G-board - a laconic keyboard from Google with built-in 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 where the acceleration methods end. There is also voice input, a slide typing function and a variety of gestures.

Phone keyboard from Google

The predictive input method is quite convenient. G-board creates a personal dictionary that grows over time. Unnecessary words can be deleted from the dictionary by long pressing on the corresponding word. Moreover, if you use several mobile devices, you can synchronize dictionaries between them.

There are all modern casual features like stickers and GIFs (all this can be requested directly from the search engine). It supports changing themes (there is, for example, an iPhone keyboard). At the same time, G-board is not a very customizable keyboard - there is some rigor here, which is beneficial for many users.

Multilingualism is well developed: currently 120 languages ​​are supported, there are additional layouts for exotic languages. Switching between languages ​​on your phone can happen without your participation. Words can be translated into any language using Google Translate.

Swype: Enter text using gestures and sliding across the keyboard

The Swype keyboard, as its name suggests, decided to stand out due to its sliding input method. However, this function is no longer exclusive, so let’s look at other aspects of this add-on.

Swype - Russian keyboard for Android with an alternative input method

The Swype keyboard accepts input from two languages ​​- when typing, options from two language sets will be offered simultaneously. This is convenient because you don’t need to switch between layouts, and two languages ​​are the norm, for example, for a Russian-English combination. The Russian language is downloaded as a package when you install the keyboard on your phone.

Swype has well-configured gestures and hotkeys for copying and pasting text. You can customize the behavior of a long press and set the delay interval. You can set the vibration of the keys to your liking.

Swype takes hints from the dictionary, similar to other Android keyboards. In addition to guessing individual words, this application can suggest, say, the ending of a phrase. The personal dictionary is synchronized via the cloud with other connected mobile devices- so you don't have to replenish it after reinstalling the keyboard or restore the dictionary manually. During installation, just link your Google profile.

There are more than 100 languages ​​available, layouts adapted for tablets and other devices - you can trim the keyboard at your discretion by disabling unnecessary keys. So, if you need a comfortable keyboard for your tablet, Swype will be a good choice.

You can free your hands from your phone by using voice text input. To turn on the Dragon recognition mechanism, just press one button with a microphone and dictate the text that you want to add to the text field.

It’s clear that keyboard themes and emoticons are present here in full.

TouchPal is a colorful, beautiful and flexible phone add-on

TouchPal Keyboard is another keyboard that often appears in app reviews. Supports more than 1000 emoticons, beautiful themes, gifs, stickers and other joys that are useful for quick communication in social network messengers. You can change the color of the keyboard, layout, and set a nice background background.

To speed up typing, you can use various “shortcutters”: set up hot keys and swipe to perform operations with text (copy-paste and cut). Flexible clipboard that saves in several cells, substitution of paired characters, etc. For fast and smooth input, you can activate the TouchPal Curve function - in general, this is already known by another name for sliding across the keyboard buttons.

Contextual completion, correction of grammatical errors. A dictionary stored in the cloud can suggest the following words. More than 150 languages ​​are declared to be supported - but it is clear that this is fundamentally unimportant. Russian and English are available - order. True, for full-fledged work you need to download the Russian keyboard for Android. An update package called Russian for TouchPal Keyboard is available on Google Play from the same developer.

The TouchPal keyboard contains advertising and also offers various add-ons that can be downloaded for free or purchased. After installing TouchPal on the main Android screen news is displayed, so it’s worth thinking about the advisability of such a keyboard on your phone.

Smart keyboard Pro: free Russian keyboard with emoticons and themes

Smart Keyboard is a lightweight and highly customizable keyboard for your smartphone. Large quantity skins, change of layout, sound and height of keys are adjustable, smiles (emoji) included with the application. Most of the functions in the Smart Keyboard are available free of charge, although only in the trial version of the Android add-on.

Smart Keyboard: choosing themes

Other Features mobile application Smart Keyboard:

  • T9 keyboard and other layouts are available for most world languages ​​supported by Android OS
  • The keyboard fully works in Russian (it is also possible to add a Russian dictionary for auto-completion)
  • Built-in and additional themes for Android keyboards with different colored backgrounds and keys, there are also iPhone skins (they can be downloaded from the Smart Keyboard developer on the Google Play website)
  • Flexible setup gestures, abbreviations (text shortcuts) and hotkeys
  • Voice input (available in Smart keyboard Pro)
  • Easily switch between language layouts
  • Self-learning user dictionary and autocompletion
  • Emoji keyboard, large selection of funny colored emoticons

To install the keyboard, launch the apk application, then follow the setup wizard. You will be asked to change the default keyboard input method; this can be done through the dialog that appears.

Kika Keyboard - emoji keyboard for Android and beautiful themes

Free keyboard with huge customization options. (Probably, according to this criterion, Kika Keyboard is the best keyboard for Android). There are thousands of different emoticons, emoticons, stickers, gifs, sounds and design themes. You can create own themes by changing, say, the keyboard background. The keyboard is Internet-dependent, that is, most add-ons must first be downloaded to the phone.

The keyboard layout in Kika Keyboard is also flexibly customizable; you can change the layout to a tablet one (QWERTY, QWERTZ or AZERTY to choose from). There is sliding dialing, typing gestures and voice input are supported.

Predicative functions - auto-completion of words and letters, emoticons.

Cheetah Keyboard - beautiful 3D keyboard with maximum customization

Cheetah Keyboard is a beautiful, highly customizable keyboard for Android OS. Supports emoji, emoticons, speeds up text entry in any language, including Russian.

Application Features:

  • Alternative text input - gestures and sliding across the keyboard layout. Swipe text entry - no need to press each key, you can enter letters by sliding across the keyboard
  • Auto hint system ( predicative input text). Auto-correction function - fix simple mistakes, typos, auto-correction of uppercase and lowercase letters. There is no need to be distracted by correcting words yourself.
  • Impressive 3D themes (including free ones available for download on Google Play)
  • Flexible keyboard personalization. Ability to create custom templates, change the background, fonts, sound, effects and shades, height / width of keys.
  • Gif keyboard - the application contains stickers and memes for every taste
  • Large selection emoticons and emoji to convey emotions and save time
  • Smart replies (based on received replies) - speeds up and saves users time

The Cheetah Keyboard is available for Android in Russian, Cyrillic and dictionaries are also fully supported along with English and many other localizations.

GO Keyboard SwiftKey Keyboard G-board Swipe TouchPal Smart keyboard Kika Keyboard
Russian keyboard + + + + + + +
design themes + + + + + +
emoticons (emoticons, emoji) + + + + + +
stickers (stickers) + + + + + + +
autocompletion and autocorrection (substitution options) + + + + + + +
voice text input + + +
non-standard (alternative) layouts + + +
gestures and hotkeys + SwiftKey Flow + (swipe typing and gestures) + (sliding input method) + + (sliding set)

Most Chinese tablets have a touchscreen (screen touch processor) that is resistive, not capacitive, so it only responds to touches of the screen with some pressure.
As a result, typing text on the built-in on-screen keyboard, the user has to almost point his fingers at the touchscreen. Many people get bored with this pretty quickly and decide to buy a keyboard for their tablet.
But connecting an external keyboard to the tablet raises new questions: does it need a driver, how to add a Cyrillic layout, etc.
All these questions will no longer be relevant after installation. "ruKeyboard" for Android . A program that supports an external (hardware) keyboard and many layouts. You can download the stable version of “ruKeyboard” for Android by clicking on the link. Further customization of the tablet keyboard is discussed using this particular version as an example.

1. After installing ruKeyboard, go to the tablet settings.
2. Find the “Language and Settings” item and check the box next to “ruKeyboard”.

3. Then go to the “ruKeyboard” settings and select “Hardware Keyboard”.


4. Go to “Select a layout” and in the list of available layouts that opens, select “External keyboard”


5. Open any program that has a text input field, such as a browser.


6. Make a long click (click with a delay) on the text input field and select “ruKeyboard” in the “Input Method” menu that appears.

Please note: in the "ruKeyboard" version mentioned here, you can quickly switch the layout by pressing the "Del" key. On most portable keyboards it is located in the upper right corner.

If your Android tablet has Bluetooth support, you can connect to it wireless bluetooth keyboard that you can buy inexpensively