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Acer Iconia A500 Tablet Pairs Nicely with Any USB PC Keyboard

28.05.2011
I'm writing today's post on my Android-based tablet. But no, I'm not tapping slowly around an on-screen keyboard. Instead, I grabbed an old USB keyboard that was laying at the bottom of a junk drawer in my closet, and I'm typing as fast as I would on my desk-bound machine. For tablet-based productivity, this is an awesome experience.

What back-bending acrobatics did I have to through to make this happen? I'll walk you through the whole process, step by step:

1) Find a USB keyboard. It has to be a PC keyboard; Mac keyboards don't seem to work.

2) Plug it into the USB port.

Yes, it's exactly the sort of ultra-technical hackery that Android has become known for, but if you can make it all the way through both steps, you'll be handsomely rewarded with the ability to type freely on a full-size keyboard.

Sadly, the Acer Iconia A500 is one of the few tablets to sport a standard USB port, so not all Android tablet users can enjoy this feature. So I'm going to take this opportunity to in her ongoing campaign to urge tablet makers to pull their heads out of whatever crevices they've got them stuffed into and make this a standard feature across the form factor. And while I don't expect Apple to listen, I would hope that the rest of the industry sees the awesome opportunity here.