Pinyin input methods for PC (and Android): which one do you prefer?

[dementior]

hello everyone!

Since my writing assignments are getting longer, I want to try to optimize how I input the characters.

If there are other threads related to this topic let me know, I could not find any

 

I came across this webpage:

http://www.wandoujia.com/search?key=%E8%BE%93%E5%85%A5%E6%B3%95

 

there are plenty of options for pinyin input for PC:

• would you mind sharing what is your experience with the different input methods and which one suits best your needs?
• are there any resources in English for getting started or targeting non-native users?

So far I was using sougu (搜孤), but without exploring any of the extra features... Now that my Chinese is good enough to go through the help section by myself, I have discovered for example one feature I was not aware of before: for some complex characters if you do not know the pinyin you can build it by blocks, e.g. 鑫 (you type jinjinjin). But today I read a few negative reviews about it and they were all recommending "bing pinyin", so I am going to give it a try as well.

 

Anyways my point is that the more I type Chinese on my PC or my android phone, the more time I can save if I get a good grasp of how this software works.

As for Android I was using TouchPal since I need a multilingual keyboard (3 or more languages) but I am not satisified with it either...

 

thanks in advance 

[Shelley]

For android I use Go Keyboard. It works very well and you can have as many languages as you need, the list is very long!! It also has a handwriting input addon which works very well. It is on play store but I understand you can also get it from the developers website for anyone behind the GFW.

 

It is free, has no ads, doesn't need the internet to work and has been working on my tablet and phone without problems for at least a couple of years now.

 

For PC (windows 7) I have taken to using the Microsoft New Experience Input Style that comes with the language pack, this is because I tried google pinyin input but as all the alerts, update request etc were in chinese it wasn't easy to get on with at my non techie level of chinese.

 

The Microsoft program works very well and has no problems that I have come across. I get the impression if you ask for some odd variant or other character not in the database it might be a problem but there are settings for that sort of thing, but I just used it straight out of the box and its fine.

 

You can type whole sentences and it seems to cope, changing from English to chinese can be done a couple of ways. There are quite a few things you do to make it work well for you.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

[kokoman]

Best choice:

For Android use Google Pinyin Input

For Windows use Google Pinyin Input for Windows

[stapler]

Windows: Google pinyin. Pretty much Sougou without the ads as far as I'm concerned.

[Flickserve]

I have been using Go on Android. It's pretty good.

Windows New Experience works for me.

I had not heard of Google Pinyin input before! Need to check it out.

[AdamD]

I've just installed Google Pinyin input (Win 7) as a result of this thread. 搜狗 on Win 7 is fabulous but the ads and pop-ups are dodgy as hell.

 

With Google (Windows), you can switch between simp and trad with ctrl+shift+t.

[stapler]

Plus it only takes 2 seconds to get it just how I like it: ridiculously big (literally cover half my screen) and bright!

 

edit: realised I made a typo in the screenshot. embarrassing haha

[Shelley]

but the ads and pop-ups are dodgy as hell.

 

Exactly why I stopped using it.

[skylee]

I use Google Pinyin and Google Cantonese and Japanese ime on my Android devices.

On my windows8 I use Google Pinyin. On my Windows7 office PC I use rime http://rime.im/.

[dementior]

thanks a lot for the responses!

it seems that many of you embrace google Pinyin input method either for Andoird or PC.

 

I will install it on my PC and try to compare the performance with Bing pinyin. For Android I am currently using google pinyin but I am not satisfied (I have used Touchpal and GoKeyboard before)..

But again, this could be related to the poor performance of my mobile phone itself.

[dnevets]

I've always used android smartphones and always used Google pinyin and always thought it was great. But is it possible that it has actually gotten worse over time? It doesn't seem very 'smart' to me. Examples: Inputting xiang'si'ni'le *didn't* suggest 想死你了. Had to select 想 and then scroll several pages to find 死. Also: ren'man'er'huan , something else I typed yesterday, but 人满而患 was nowhere to be seen. Tried installing 搜狗 sougou and what a difference! So far, so good - I'm sticking with it.

 

Related: the Chinese input on my work PC (new machine, windows 10, and using the built-in pinyin input method) is horrible. Seems buggy. Input is really slow/delayed and seems to slow down the whole machine.