I tried using the Samsung keyboard again, and it still sucks

Oh, Samsung keyboard. My beloved, beloved, perpetually infuriating, Samsung keyboard.

Almost a year ago, I found myself using a Samsung keyboard for the first time while reviewing the Galaxy S25, and to no one’s surprise, it went Very Bad. Almost all of my texts were filled with obscure typos; Samsung’s autocorrect made frequent mistakes and swipe/voice typing was incredibly frustrating.

So, when I got the Galaxy S26 last month, I decided to give the Samsung keyboard another try. Would things have gotten better in the year since I last tried it? Will it eventually be worth using? Spoiler alert: Not at all – not even close.

After setting up the Galaxy S26 and installing all my apps, it was time to see if my Samsung keyboard problems from the 2025 were gone in the 2026. I opened Telegram, the Samsung keyboard appeared, and these were the first two messages I sent:

“Is the fun keyboard still bad”

A few minutes later, I responded to a message about The Super Mario Galaxy movie trailer that read, “I haven’t seen the new trailer yet so I don’t get it.” This was immediately followed by “Oh hey! No typo!” And then “Again!”

Wait a minute… has Samsung actually fixed the Samsung keyboard? Were my first two messages just random mistakes? Oh, I wish that were true. What little hope I had for a moment that my Samsung keyboard problems were over was dashed a few minutes later when I sent the following message: “Looks like he has a ROGUH FLAMING INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL.” And again, “Tnay is considered roigj.”

These messages were funny the first few times, and admittedly I even laughed a few times because of their absurdity. But the 10th or 20th time you send a message that seems vague, the attraction wears off. At the end of the day, I just want to use my phone’s keyboard to type quickly and reliably – none of that is possible with Samsung keyboards.

The problem with Samsung keyboards is actually not limited to a single thing but rather multiple issues. Input sensitivity is everywhere. Samsung’s autocorrect skips obviously misspelled words, yet turns correctly typed words into something else entirely. Voice typing is embarrassingly inaccurate compared to Gboard. Using the Samsung keyboard is a constant battle to send a correctly spelled message instead of complete nonsense.

I think I said it best in this text: “It’s like Samsung went out of its way to make the Samsung G Keyboard an inferior product.”

Complaints about Samsung keyboards are nothing new. It’s well known throughout the Android world that this is one of the worst typing experiences the platform has to offer, and yet, Samsung has shown little to no interest in making this dreadful thing work. Instead, the company would like to add half-baked AI features to it.

I would love for the Samsung keyboard to be usable one day, but at this point, it’s becoming clear that fixing the keyboard is not a priority for Samsung. And you know what? Good. But if Samsung doesn’t want to put in the work to make the Samsung Keyboard an enjoyable experience, I’d like the company to turn it off, as it’s been doing with Samsung Messages this year.

It’s easy enough to install Gboard (or any third-party keyboard) to replace the Samsung keyboard, but adding ones right out of the box on every Samsung phone is a terrible user experience. As my colleague Rita recently argued, when the biggest Android brand offers such a terrible typing experience it gives Android as a whole a bad name.

But until something is done about the Samsung keyboard, I’ll keep complaining about it. Because as they say, “Tnay is considered roigj.”