Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
It’s been years since I last tried to pair a Bluetooth or USB keyboard with my Android phone. After being a physical QWERTY proponent for years and hating on touchscreen typing, I wholly but slowly embraced pecking on a glass surface. There were a few times I wished I had a keyboard for my Android tablets, but it wasn’t frequent enough to make me pay for one.
That changed a few weeks ago when I started testing the Clicks Keyboard with my Pixel 9 Pro, which is running Android 16‘s latest QPR3 beta. I’d seen my colleague Mishaal Rahman cover Google’s work on keyboard support for years, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be this good. So here’s my rundown of all the excellent things I enjoy about using an external keyboard with Android 16.
Have you used an external keyboard with your Android phone or tablet? 16 votes Yes, all the time. 13 % I use one from time to time. 44 % I tried it a long time ago, but don't use one anymore. 13 % I never tried that. 31 %
It starts from the moment I plug the keyboard in
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
When I plug the Clicks Keyboard into my Pixel 9 Pro and tap a text field, a small floating button instantly appears on the display with the currently selected language. In the image above, you can see the floating “US” in the middle left of the screen, but the screenshots below show it more clearly.
Physical keyboard language pop-up ...or emoji picker
That floating toolbar was added to Gboard a couple of Android versions ago, but it remains a highlight feature today. Instead of CTRL + Space’ing through languages and hoping you land on the one you want to use, you can select the exact one you want. It brings so much more than language selection, too.
I don't have to choose between using Gboard or plugging an external keyboard to get all of Gboard's features.
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