25 May 16 01:55, you wrote to me:

 ac>> On a phone, half the screen is taken up by the onscreen keyboard.

 MK> The one screenshot I saw it was just a tad under half.  I was not
 MK> amused.  :-/

 ac>> the Ctrl key on Android doesn't work the same

 MK> The heathen bastards!!!  That sounds like a deal breaker to me.

To elaborate, on hardware keyboards under Android, Ctrl operates as a latching
switch instead of a momentary switch.

You get used to it if you have to. Outside of SSH, Ctrl isn't used much in most
Android apps, so it's not a big deal.

Still, I'd be interested to know why they've done it that way.

 MK> Now that you mention it I forgot to check if the onscreen keyboard
 MK> actually had a ctrl key.  All I remember now is it was frugal key-wise
 MK> nevermind if it is actually useful.

On Android you can install custom onscreen keyboards from the Play Store.

"Hackers Keyboard" is a good free one, with onscreen Ctrl, Alt, Fn & others.

 ac>> Using an external (USB or Bluetooth) keyboard can help

 MK> Is that doable?  From reports I've heard not much in the way of usb
 MK> based hardware actually works on those types of devices.  From my
 MK> perspective it wounds like it could be a software issue but also could
 MK> be a chipset limitation.  I have never been curious enough to lay down
 MK> the cash to find out.

It works for me.

USB keyboards and mice work on all the Android devices I've owned. You just
need to buy an OTG (on-the-go) adapter cable from somewhere. On eBay they're
about $5.

Whether USB thumbdrives work as mass storage devices under Android depends on
whether that option was enabled in the kernel. Also, the drive probably needs
to be formatted as FAT32 or exFAT, not NTFS. ext2/3/4 might work, I've never
tried it.

I don't recall trying USB audio but it probably works.

Bluetooth audio (headsets or external speakers), keyboards and mice should work
on any Android device that supports Bluetooth.

--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20160201