Few months back, I wrote a post on an android keyboard that researchers at St. Andrews were working on. This keyboard is called “KALQ” and scientists claimed it to be the fastest touchscreen keyboard till date. KALQ has a completely different layout from the traditional QUERTY and uses button placements optimized for two thumb typing. Scientists believe that with enough practice, users can improve their typing speed by over 30%. The beta version of this keyboard is already out on the Google Play Store so I decided to give it a go.
Also Read: Swiftkey VS Swype: The battle of Android keyboard
Running this Beta version all I can say is that KALQ has a lot of work to do. Firstly, the keyboard interface looks really boring. There are no theme options and the buttons are just too small. If you are planning on running KALQ on your 4.7” smartphone, you will have a hard time reading the letters on the keys. Even Galaxy Note 2 users have complained that the small keys are straining their eyes. The KALQ layout is “scientifically proven” to be the best but I found it painful to type even a single word. Of course with practice I will improve but I don’t think that is going to be anytime sooner. For now, I am sticking to my swiping (Swiftkey flow) instead of KALQ’s two thumb typing.
Another thing is there is no auto space function. Instead, you have two spacebars on the left and right block of keys and that didn’t ease up my typing. There is also a bug- when you press the key to bring up the numbers, there is no backspace/delete key.
All in all, KALQ didn’t do the job for me. I hope the developers will sort out and solve all the issues before the final version is out. I could practice KALQ for a week and see where it goes but I’m not going to. I guess I’m a little impatient. However, if you want to give it a go, here is the download link: Download KALQ beta
