Hi Scott. Yes. The Fire does connect with bluetooth keyboards and I
have one also. However, as written, I grab my full-size USB keyboard
for quick stuff. Note I only have one such keyboard as well. Connected
to my laptop.
Stay well. William
On 8/29/20, Scott Davert <kc8pnl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Does the fire not work well with Bluetooth keyboards? I only have one USB
keyboard that is on my Windows PC.
Thanks for any feedback,
Scott
Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 29, 2020, at 7:09 PM, David Griffith <daj.griffith@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I tried experimenting tonight with my ancient Fire Tablet. I was using
Email by utilising an external USB wired keyboard plugged in with an OTG
connector. As others have commented This is by far the easiest way to
attach a keyboard on the Fire.
I am not sure I have seen anybody post these findings so I thought I would
post them here in case they are useful to anybody else. Apologies if
Advanced Fire users already know this and they can delete now.
First of all some keyboard shortcuts at least work.
Control N will create a new mail ready for composing.
The tab and the shift tab key appears to be able to navigate you through
the relative header fields of the Email – that is who you are sending the
email to, CC and Subject fields and of course the message body.
I did not find it entirely consistent – for example I seemed to hear 2
fields for the email contact that I was trying to send to but I still
was able to muddle through effectively and I think this will become OK
with practice.
Once you have completed your email then just like in Outlook pressing
control and enter will send your email automatically. I imagine that
control R will reply and control F will forward but I have still to try
these out.
So potentially even an old Fire tablet like mine is quite an effective and
easy Email app to some extent mimicking a basic PC Outlook
functionality.
Unfortunately the functionality gets spoilt by the inability of a typist
to review and edit the text using an external keyboard. You will get
excellent character and word echo whilst you are typing but if you want
to hear and review what you have typed you will have to abandon the
keyboard and resort to swiping around the screen with Voice View
gestures.
This makes fine editing far more problematic though somebody else has
reported that normal control C, X, A, V shortcuts for copy cut and
paste also work.
If Amazon could only add the ability of Voice view to support a keyboard
to review by line, word and character this cheap and budget Fire could
start to become a serious if basic notetaker option as well as
communicator. The email app could easily double as a notepad with mails
sent to yourself.
As it stands it is certainly feasible to use the Fire in this way to send
informal emails or send rough notes to yourself for polishing up on
another device like a PC.
David G.
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
