Note8 Keyboard Cover

[Aviv]

I understand the feeling. I was pretty disappointed with the Key2 when I played with it a bit at an event: it's an OK phone, but coming from the Priv with its gorgeous OLED screen, the Key2 is such a huge downgrade.

I had exactly the same problem as you did: my Priv was unbearably slow at common tasks, so as much as I've loved the phone, I got frustrated with it almost daily.

Nevertheless, I'll share that although I'm pretty happy with my Note 8, the keyboard is definitely a big step down from the Priv, so be ready/set your expectations for that. E.g. everything else will be better than the Priv, minus the keyboard, which will be measurably worse.

It's possible we'll have another landscape slider soon: https://www.readyfx.com/ so I'm also keeping an eye out for that.

I don't expect the note keyboard to be as good as the Priv's, and it hurts enought to give up the shortcuts and the capacitive actions. However, the Priv is near unusable - google maps takes over two minutes to load sometimes. I want a brand name phone that has a camera at least as good as the Priv's, with a reasonable (doesn't have to be stellar) physical keyboard. I bought the Key2 and returned it after a day - the screen was just awful and the camera even worse.

I'm sure I can adjust to the Samsung keyboard and it's certainly much better than typing on screen (something I was never willing to do besides a year with a nexus 4).

 

[rad30n]

I don't expect the note keyboard to be as good as the Priv's, and it hurts enought to give up the shortcuts and the capacitive actions. However, the Priv is near unusable - google maps takes over two minutes to load sometimes. I want a brand name phone that has a camera at least as good as the Priv's, with a reasonable (doesn't have to be stellar) physical keyboard. I bought the Key2 and returned it after a day - the screen was just awful and the camera even worse.

I'm sure I can adjust to the Samsung keyboard and it's certainly much better than typing on screen (something I was never willing to do besides a year with a nexus 4).

I think the biggest limitation on the Priv is the RAM -- Android 6 + the basic Blackberry stuff doesn't help, and modern apps are so memory hungry that the phone basically gets unusable. I had **exactly** the same experience on my Priv. I remember one day where I was driving, hearing an ebook and routing using google maps and someone called me and the phone basically froze the screen and rang without letting me pick up.

So TL;DR yeah, if you do go for the Note 8, please share your experience!

 

[Aviv]

I got my note and the keyboard cover, and it's fantastic. I'm still not completely adjusted, but I expect to return to full speed compared to the Priv.

The advantage is that taking the keyboard off gives you a lot of screen. Also, having the keyboard in front really improves the device's protection. The note 8 is very fragile - being very heavy and covered in glass all around. The case is a perfect balance for me between adequate protection and minimal bulk. It fits well inside my pocket and in my hand.

The cons are the loss of backlight and the capacitive touchpad. Part of being so quick with the Priv was swiping to complete words. The samsung keyboard is much better at adding words to the dictionary.

Another con, to me, is that this keyboard is very loud compared to the Priv. It is much more clicky though, if that's your thing.

Finally, the keyboard case makes the phone act a little weird at times. I think there's enough space left on the screen to allow multi window, but it's blocked. Other limitations appear throughout the interface - you can't purchase or apply themes when the keyboard is on (!??!), and the worst part is the camera - having the keyboard on, limits the camera to auto mode at a 1:1 ratio. There's absolutely no reason for that.

All in all, I'm happy with this device. I would have liked an S8/S9 more for a smaller size, but the Note 8 was the best deal of them all and has more ram compared to the S8, so I'm quite happy. All I wish for is that I don't drop and break it.

 

[gatsbythegerbil]

I'll answer the question for him, since I spent about 5 minutes on the same thing. Love when people post to a forum and say "it's fixed" with no details...

Long press the "." key while in any text input field. An character menu will display at the bottom of the screen. Select the "." and it will be changed to that from then on.

Sorry to resurrect this after over a year, but I'm wondering if anyone has gotten the period key problem solved on Android 9? When I long press the key, it only gives me a yen and won symbol to choose from - I can't even get it to go back to $.

 

[ant0nwax]

Sorry to resurrect this after over a year, but I'm wondering if anyone has gotten the period key problem solved on Android 9? When I long press the key, it only gives me a yen and won symbol to choose from - I can't even get it to go back to $.

I got mine, but it does not work yet correctly

I think you can configure samsung keyboard special characters somewhere in the settings, to appear at different positions, at least in my hungarian firmware you find it
i have another issue, maybe you solved it already:

The Onscreen keyboard looks different from the layout of the case... how to get the onscreen keyboard to match the layout of the case... i post a photo so that you understand... look for example the position of the enter key

 

[rad30n]

I got mine, but it does not work yet correctly

I think you can configure samsung keyboard special characters somewhere in the settings, to appear at different positions, at least in my hungarian firmware you find it
i have another issue, maybe you solved it already:

The Onscreen keyboard looks different from the layout of the case... how to get the onscreen keyboard to match the layout of the case... i post a photo so that you understand... look for example the position of the enter key

ant0nwax you don't need to match the on-screen keyboard with the hardware keyboard. In models that support it, the phone will automatically force the correct layout and work out-of-the-box. If it doesn't for you, something's wrong: either the case is misbehaving, or you have a version of the phone (or ROM) that does not include support for the keyboard. At least this is my experience: see my comments above where I had this issue with a Galaxy S8+ from Hong Kong.

 

[ant0nwax]

Hi there

and if my software is not supported, why do you think the screen resizes correctly and i got a greeting that I am using the keyboard cover?

My first assumption is wrong:
i think the old keyboard in Android 8 was just like the case, but the android 9 keyboard is different, i called the customer care yesterday and they confirmed that the keyboard was different in android 8
question is if i could install the samsung keyboard for andorid 8 into android 9

EDIT: I found a solution
The upper is not needed and really the wrong approach... It works in Android 9 too
The fact is that Samsung never thought about people using KEYBOARD COVER and changing the DPI settings in Developer Options at Screen Width
the keyboard cover does only work at 411 dpi, which is factory default for Note 8 N950F
I used to have 520 dpi, so this will be hard to get used to
Hope this could help some people one day, maybe with other keyboard covers

EDIT2: one more issue
my screen protector does not work together with the keyboard cover, its quite thick
keys work for typing but navigation keys for home and back and tasks does not work, so i had to remove the screen protector for now

 

[rad30n]

> the keyboard cover does only work at 411 dpi, which is factory default for Note 8 N950F

Thanks for sharing your discovery, I hadn't considered that. I'm not surprised, to be honest, small things seem to be breaking with every release (symbols panel, emoji panel), I don't think anyone at Samsung knows or cares about this feature anymore, so I wouldn't be surprised if some future firmware update breaks it for good (because Samsung bundles the keyboard apk in the firmware and you can't update or downgrade it).

I actually moved two weeks ago to the Fxtec Pro1, my girlfriend is keeping the Note 8, but one interesting thing I'll document here is that my Note 8 screen colors have been degrading between the half of the screen under the keyboard, and the rest of the screen.

That is, if I remove the keyboard and open any app with a white background, such as the launcher, there is a clearly visible shift in white tones between both parts of the screen, which is somewhat distracting. My Note 8 was still under warranty (yay Europe) so I've sent it in, let's see if they replace it.

 

[gatsbythegerbil]

The Onscreen keyboard looks different from the layout of the case... how to get the onscreen keyboard to match the layout of the case... i post a photo so that you understand... look for example the position of the enter key

Huh, that's different. I've never seen so much space on the right side of the keyboard when it's full-sized. What happens if you click Reset? Is that the default setting?

Does it enter the wrong keys when you type because of the different placement? When I snap the keyboard onto the phone, it changes the keyboard settings to match, and moves back to the usual layout when I pop the keyboard back off. The phone knows the keyboard is attached and adjusts accordingly.

[edit] Sorry, didn't see previous replies. Glad you found a solution.

---------- Post added at 09:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:25 PM ----------

That is, if I remove the keyboard and open any app with a white background, such as the launcher, there is a clearly visible shift in white tones between both parts of the screen, which is somewhat distracting. My Note 8 was still under warranty (yay Europe) so I've sent it in, let's see if they replace it.

That doesn't surprise me. AMOLEDs are known to degrade like that, and I've seen others complain about screen burn on the Note 8. It's not usually noticeable but if some apps turn off the screen under the keyboard, that part of the screen would face significantly less wear.

How are you liking the Fxtec so far? Last I heard, it was just barely getting delivered to customers.

 

[ant0nwax]

for me with hungarian firmware android 9 i need to press alt and m for the "." i will ask samsung how to reprogram that the dot is pressed when i press the dot short because right now a $ sign appears if i press short and if i press for 500 ms a dot appears

 

[cmdfidel]

Does anyone have this keyboard for sale? I understand that XDA is not a marketplace, but this is a damn rare accessory, I haven’t been able to find it on eBay and elsewhere for half a year now, and I hope that it will at least be found here.