8pen Keyboard Review

[G+_Brandon Giesing / CosiC]

8pen Keyboard Review

Have you ever wondered what the keyboard would be like if it was invented today? Well the folks at 8pen  have and this is their unique keyboard!

 

This keyboard has a standard setup app in your app drawer however that is pretty much all it does. If you want to access the settings, you will have to access it from the keyboard or from Android's system wide settings.

 

So how does this keyboard work? You type by spinning your finger around a center circle in loops. The center looks like a dot with 4 lines coming-out of it. Inside each section made by the lines, is 8 letters. Start in the circle and move into one of these sections containing the letter you want. You then cross over into the section next to it in either clockwise or counterclockwise directions and go as many sections as the position of the letter. For example, a is first letter on the top side of the right section, so to type the letter a, you go around the center counterclockwise one section. Finally you end back in the center.

 

It is simple to use but hard to learn. Till you learn it, you might be slow and be tempted to switch back to a normal QWERTY keyboard. Well don't, cause you will lose progress on mastering the 8pen.

 

To help, the creators of the 8pen have added a few things:

1. A separate game called the 8pen Wordcup. It allows you to learn the 8pen one letter and word at a time.

2. Word suggestions can be selected quickly by going from the center into the sector corresponding with the suggestion and back into the center.

3. Custom gesture support. Why this doesn't sound like it would help, it does greatly. For example, say you want to write your name? Before you would have to type out common phrases like this manually. Now you you just draw a gesture on the 8pen anywhere outside the center and it will write the text.

 

You can just see the possibilities with this keyboard. It is amazing how fast you can learn it and use it compared to the standard Qwerty.

 

Not to mention it is also highly customizable with themes, height, and center size options. Also there are different number keyboard layouts including a 8pen style one.

 

So should you buy this keyboard? I say yes cause it is really unique and the developers have great support!

 

Download from Here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eightpen.android.eightpen

Download the 8pen Wordcup game here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eightpen.android.wordcup