In the summer, along with mine Chinese tablet, I bought a case with a USB keyboard for it. But since I quickly broke the tablet by sitting on it and crushing the screen, the case lay on the shelf for a long time.
And so, recently I decided to see if this keyboard would work with my new Acer tablet. When I took out the case, it was all swollen and slightly wrinkled.
Most likely, due to high humidity, it has spoiled a little.
I don’t really need it in this form, I thought, and there’s no tablet of that size right now. And I decided to take it apart and see what was inside.
Everything turned out to be easier than could have been done.
The Chinese did not bother with artificial leather of normal quality and glued a thin plastic figurine. Why it was necessary to stitch it with white thread, especially so crookedly, is unclear.
Further - more interesting. Ordinary cardboard, which you can buy from us in goods for artists, a couple of pieces of adhesive tape and a keyboard. As far as I understand, it is the same as in netbooks.
Here are some photos:
ASUS Transformer and Microsoft Surface are great devices that combine a tablet and a full-fledged laptop. On the road, such a thing does not take up much space and is great for both work and leisure. He took out a thin keyboard from the bag, and you had a laptop in your hands, put it back - the tablet. Comfortable. But is it possible to do something similar from a regular Android tablet? Easily!
For what?
Even the cheapest modern tablets have extremely powerful hardware, the performance of which is quite enough to compete with netbooks. However, the tablet has a completely different purpose, which poses an obvious problem: what to take with you on the road? Is a tablet or netbook convenient for reading books, surfing the web and playing games - an excellent tool for communication and work? Carrying both with us is not the most fun thing to do, but we can take a different path.
Let's start with the fact that almost any tablet running Android supports connecting a keyboard and mouse - in fact, this turns it into a kind of all-in-one computer that you can lean against something, place the keyboard and mouse in front of you and work quietly. This is not very convenient on the road, and it’s too much even for a geek, so the smart Chinese have come up with special cases with a built-in keyboard, which with a slight movement of the hand turn the tablet into an interesting device, similar to a netbook. It’s definitely worth buying such a case, especially since it will cost no more than 20 American rubles, and the keyboard is really good.
The second is the OS. It would seem that Android is not designed for work at all and you cannot do without a full-fledged netbook/laptop. But here everything is in order, browsers easily serve several tabs, there are many keyboard shortcuts, a full set of UNIX utilities, a bunch of administration software, compilers, utilities, web servers and everything you can think of, except absolutely nothing. professional software such as Photoshop or ProTools. But I doubt that anyone will engage in graphic art or composition mixing while sitting in the passenger seat of a car moving along the “magnificent” Russian roads.
In other words, the tablet has everything to use as a workstation, but we’ll talk about how to use “everything” to its fullest.
Basic minimum
So, we have a tablet running Android 4, a keyboard, a mouse (optional) and the desire to turn it all into a workhorse.
I’ll make a reservation right away that a USB keyboard and mouse can only be plugged into a tablet that supports USB host (OTG) mode, so if the tablet doesn’t have this option, you’ll have to use more expensive Bluetooth accessories, and if there’s no Bluetooth support, then nothing. You can't help it - such a tablet is not suitable.
If the USB host mode is supported, the keyboard or mouse should be connected using an OTG cable, which usually comes with the tablet and is a miniUSB-male cable on one side and a full-size USB female on the other (if the tablet has full-size USB- ports, you can weave directly into them). If it is not included in the kit, an OTG cable can be bought at any mobile equipment store or ordered in China for one dollar (it is no worse). I would like to warn you that usually not all ports support host mode, so you need to plug it into the correct one (usually it is signed Host or OTG).
When everything is in hand, we attach the mouse and keyboard to the tablet - and voila, everything works. One might say that this would be enough, but Android can offer much more advanced keyboard control capabilities. One of the main ones is a fairly developed and convenient system of keyboard shortcuts, which has existed since the first versions of the OS. So, to navigate around the desktop and various menus, you can use the “arrows”, and the key replaces the “Back” button, and
Android keyboard shortcuts
A special place among them is occupied by the combination Keyboard shortcuts are also available in applications, but only a small part of developers implement such controls. Even among browsers where this functionality is a must, I could only find two that can be fully controlled using the keyboard. This is a standard browser and Google Chrome, which support the following set of combinations: Browser combinations Unfortunately, in Android there is no way to change key combinations or add your own, but the existing ones will be quite enough to work with the tablet without any mouse, only occasionally touching the screen to select some hard-to-reach interface element. Since we are talking about the browser, we need to take care of the Internet connection. Not all tablets are equipped with a 3G module, so you will most likely have to get the Internet in other ways. Two standard solutions are a 3G modem or Internet from a phone. The first option is more preferable, however, on tablets with one host port (like mine), it will not allow you to plug in a keyboard as well. The option of distributing the Internet from your phone via Wi-Fi is very convenient, but it drains the smart phone’s battery at an incredible speed, so it is much better to use the more economical Bluetooth for this purpose. The blue tooth situation in Android is quite strange, and its support varies greatly from version to version. Nevertheless, Internet distribution via Bluetooth (PAN profile) has been supported for a long time, and, most likely, it is already present in the smartphone (you should look somewhere in the area “Wireless networks -> Advanced -> Modem mode”). To connect to such a “broadcaster,” Google recommends selecting the desired Bluetooth device from the list in the “Profiles” section and checking the “Use for Internet access” checkbox. But in practice, such an item often simply does not exist, so to connect you will have to use an independent implementation of the PAN profile, for example, “Bluetooth PAN” from the market. It requires root, but using it is as easy as shelling pears: launch it, click on the huge round button in the middle of the screen. To have access to all the necessary data on the road, you can transfer it to a flash drive in advance or use cloud drives like Dropbox or Google Drive. Both approaches are inconvenient because they do not allow synchronization to occur automatically. But the Dropsync application can do this and does it very well. In fact, Dropsync performs the same task as the desktop version of Dropbox: it allows you to store files on a flash drive, periodically synchronizing them with cloud storage. What’s important is that the directories for synchronization can be selected individually, sending and receiving from the cloud only what is really needed on the tablet, for example, books, music, source texts. Using Dropsync is quite simple, you just need to select the directory to sync, the directory in Dropbox and choose the synchronization method: one way or both. After this, the software will hang in the background and periodically perform synchronization. I immediately recommend buying the Pro version, it supports Linux inotify technology for instant synchronization immediately after changing files, and also removes the 5 MB file size limit and the limit on one synchronized directory. You can work effectively in a terminal emulator without a hardware keyboard. To do this, you just need to install the Hacker’s keyboard, which has keys Let's talk about more advanced use of the tablet. For a geek, and even more so for a person administering remote servers, standard functionality and ordinary applications will, of course, not be enough to feel complete. Therefore, we need to acquire a gentleman’s Linux set, namely a terminal emulator, a set of command line utilities, as well as various SSH clients and rsyncs. Android has all this, thanks to the Linux kernel. First of all, let's get root on the tablet. We have already told you how to do this, especially since each device has its own methodology, which includes many nuances. That's why Google is here to help. Next, install Android Terminal Emulator from the market, this is a standard VT102 emulator with support for everything you need. It supports all control sequences, which means all key combinations that you will type on the keyboard. The standard Android installation includes a limited set of command line utilities (which doesn't even include the cp command), but it can easily be expanded to a complete set by simply installing BusyBox using one of the many installers available on the market. After this, you can get normal bash instead of the wretched sh that comes with the kit. To do this, install GNU bash 4.2 Installer, launch it and click the “Install” button. So that the terminal emulator knows that we want to immediately get into bash when starting, go to the terminal settings and in the “Command Shell” option specify the path “/system/xbin/bash -”. From now on we have a full-fledged command line, but no SSH client and a good text editor. You can solve this problem by installing the good old ConnectBot and Vim Touch. As independent tools, they do a great job, but you won't be able to use them productively if you have a keyboard and need to edit various files directly from the terminal. Therefore, we will install native versions of these programs. Console Vim for Android can be obtained from this link. It should be unpacked, transferred to the tablet’s memory card, and then placed in the /system/xbin directory. Here's how to do it right in Android: Installing console vim $ su # cp /sdcard/path-to-binary /system/xbin # chmod +x /system/bin/vim The SSH client, in turn, is available in the SSHDroid application. All you need to do is install SSHDroid and copy the SSH client to the /system/xbin directory: Installing ssh $ su # cp /data/data/berserker.android.apps.sshdroid/dropbear/ssh /system/xbin # chmod +x /system/xbin/ssh You can go even further and install an entire Linux distribution that will have everything you want. It is especially convenient to use Arch Linux Installer for this, which installs minimal Arch Linux into the image without any unnecessary Xs and other rubbish. And thanks to the archaic philosophy of rolling releases, you will always have the latest software, without having to install new version distribution. The installer itself is incredibly simple, so I won’t describe its use. It is clear that while working remotely, we will most likely have to access the Internet via a VPN, since open Wi-Fi in various cafeterias and hotels simply does not inspire trust by definition. IN new Android Now there is VPN support right out of the box, so setting up proxying will not cause any problems. Just go to settings " Wireless network-> More…”, click VPN, Android prompts you to set a PIN or password, this will have to be done, otherwise they won’t let us in. Next, click “Add VPN profile” and specify the VPN type (standard PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, IPSec Xauth or IPSec Hybrid), enter the profile name, server address and keys, if necessary (for PPTP, of course, not necessary). We save, tap on the profile name, enter the login and password, and all traffic begins to flow through the tunnel. If you're planning to do some coding on the go, Google Play has a ton of tools for that. To create small utility utilities and scripts, you can use the SL4A environment (code.google.com/p/android-scripting), which allows you to execute scripts written in sh, Python, Ruby, Perl, Lua and other languages. The environment is equipped with an editor and a simple API that allows you to access the main functions of the tablet. For more serious development, you can use the QPython environment, which, in addition to the SL4A API, offers access to the native Android API, as well as the cross-platform Kivy library of graphic widgets. Applications created using QPython will be almost indistinguishable from native ones. The Ruboto IRB framework generally offers full access to the Android Java API, but for the Ruby language. I would especially like to mention the AIDE environment, which allows you to create full-fledged Java applications for Android in Android itself. The environment is very advanced, with a full set of all the necessary functions, including syntax highlighting, autocompletion, online hints, compilation and one-click launch. AIDE is fully compatible with Android SDK projects, so it can really be used for serious development. Particularly hardcore comrades can install GNU GCC C/C++ Compiler, the same GCC and a set of binutils that allow you to compile software in the console. Carrying a tablet with you, and even having a keyboard and mouse connected to it, you will probably want to hook it up to the HDMI port of your TV or AV receiver. In principle, everything here is simple and boringly convenient: plug in the cable and get a picture on the big screen. But there are several interesting points that I would like to talk about. Screen blanking. One of the most frustrating aspects of implementing HDMI support in Android is the need to keep the screen on. As soon as you press the tablet's power button, the HDMI is de-energized and the “big picture” disappears. You won’t be able to disable this behavior using Android itself, but you can use the excellent Screen Standby program, which forcibly turns off the backlight of the screen, so you can safely watch videos, play games or surf the Internet without being distracted by a copy of the image on the tablet. Screen Standby has many very useful settings, for example, it turns off the backlight automatically when you plug in an HDMI cable. To do this, just enable the “Auto HDMI/MHL Detection” option in the “HDMI Detection” section (there are also settings to turn it off when launching an application or placing it in the dock). Another very interesting feature is switching the tablet into touchpad mode, when a cursor appears on the monitor screen and the tablet screen turns into a large touchpad. It is included in the menu “Settings -> Touchpad setting -> Use touchpad function”, but this function did not work for me, which is predictable, given the limited support for models. Joystick and control panel. A tablet connected to a monitor or TV can be controlled not only using a keyboard and mouse, but also using a smartphone on the same Android. It is not necessary to log into the tablet via SSH or other means to do this. You can use the BT Controller virtual joystick from the market. This program allows you to turn your smartphone into a virtual blue-toothed joystick, control panel or even a keyboard - whatever you need. BT Controller should be installed on both devices that are already connected via Bluetooth. Next, on one of the devices, press the “Connect” button, after which a message will appear on the screen asking you to select the device function: Controller or Host. Click Host on the tablet, after which an information plate appears in the upper right corner, symbolizing a successful connection and the functionality of the components. Tapping on the “KB Enabled” line on the sign will take us to the input method settings menu, in which we should select BTController, and tapping on “KB Active” will allow us to switch to BT Controller instead of the standard keyboard. When all these operations are completed, you can use the joystick that appears on the screen. The free version of the application has only one interface option - a SNES joystick, which is quite convenient to play games with, but is not suitable for other purposes. The paid version of BT Controller allows you to choose between more than thirty different joysticks, remotes and keyboards and, more importantly, create a new remote control yourself using a special editor. An Android tablet can truly be turned into a full-fledged desktop that is a pleasure to use. Of course, it won’t replace a real laptop running Linux, but special problems You won't notice it in use either. Some time ago I already posted a review of the Cube WP10 phablet based on Windows 10 Mobile. The purpose of the experiment was to explore the possibility of using a phablet with a large screen as an alternative to a full-fledged netbook or tablet for short trips. Let me make a reservation right away: if a tablet with Windows is quite capable of replacing a laptop when it comes to undemanding tasks (for example, working in MS Office, web surfing, etc.), then a phablet is still just a phone with a large screen, and its functionality is limited on the one hand both by the system used (Windows 10 Mobile is quite far from the desktop version) and by the purely technological characteristics of the device - at least the presence of communication connectors and the ability to connect external peripherals. One more caveat - I can’t say anything about interaction with Android, since I simply had no experience with this platform, no matter how good it is. My experience is that editing, and even viewing any office documents on the phone is pornography worse than the results of the query “dwarf with a donkey” on PornHub. Firstly, it is simply inconvenient - the screen is too small, the number of control elements is limited, and they occupy a significant amount of screen area. Secondly, even in native MS Office Mobile applications, the display of documents is not identical to the desktop version: somewhere the font size “floats”, somewhere the location of objects integrated into the document; the performance of macros is a completely separate matter. Let's see what came of it. So, the product in question is one of the cheapest keyboard cases that I could find on AliExpress (if you take into account the Russian-language layout). To be honest, the size of the case was depressing. It is made (of course, the price speaks for itself) from the cheapest dermantine, stitched (pun intended?) with white threads. The thickness of the part where the tablet is attached is about 5 mm, the endpaper is 4 mm, and the part of the cover with the keyboard is 9 mm. Together with the phablet inside, the design has the dimensions of an average-thick hardcover book - approximately 14.5 x 23 cm, thickness - 3 cm (excluding the stand and closure latch) and 4 cm, if you count at the “thickest” place including the stand and a retainer. This, however, is still easier to pack into a shoulder bag than a tablet. Considering the size of the entire device, the keyboard is, of course, smaller than the full-size one. Its dimensions are only 202 x 79 mm. It happens, of course, less (hello Blackberry!), but you can get used to it. The situation is worse with the location of the row of keys - for example, the Russian “X”, “Ъ” and “E”, whose place on a standard keyboard is well known, have been moved to the bottom row to the right of the space bar. There is no problem for English-speaking users - they have service symbols on these buttons that are rarely used. For us, the Slavs, there is only one inconvenience. The Micro USB cord that connects the keyboard to the phablet looks rather flimsy. However, it performs its function: the connected keyboard was detected by the system without any problems. Next, the “combat” check began. So, let's start testing the office suite. In general, with a lot of reservations, using MS Word Mobile with a keyboard is more convenient than without it. MS Excel Mobile from the very moment of opening the document demonstrates a significantly lower degree of friendliness. Adaptation for the touchscreen was not in vain - service information now eats up most of the usable space, leaving depressingly little space for the editable area. When you scroll the screen, Excel automatically hides only the title bar and formulas, as well as the bottom row with tabs, but once you start editing the content, they reappear on the screen. I have not found any ways to reduce the size of service areas. Support for VBA macros is not implemented in the mobile version of Excel, so some documents that use macros cannot be edited. For my purposes, this is not the most significant, but noticeable drawback. MS PowerPoint Mobile not worth long comments. The application is only suitable for viewing ready-made presentations. I did not load the document with a complex presentation that includes multimedia elements. It played quite well. However, trying to create a document yourself “from scratch” is a complete mockery of the user. It's better not to try. Microsoft Edge. In a browser, the keyboard is not so necessary; it is more convenient to click on links on the touchscreen, but if the need arises, the keyboard copes with the tasks at the very least. The same applies to other applications Conclusions. For those looking for a keyboard for a small tablet, I think it's better to choose a Bluetooth device with a touchpad. Even if they are more expensive. Hello, dear Habrazhitel! A month ago, having succumbed to the persuasion of the built-in Wishlist, I unexpectedly went crazy. Bearing in mind that, as a rule, typing text on tablets is not very convenient, I decided to order a Chinese overseas curiosity from Tinidil: a stand case with a built-in USB keyboard. As it turned out, there are a great many similar cases and they differ, essentially, in their size and type of USB connector. As part of this review, we will look at the case for seven-inch devices, with micro USB The gadget itself with the tablet already connected looks like this: On inside The stands contain mounts for the tablet. On the reverse side, the stand has a leg that provides some stability to the structure at an angle of 120°. The angle of inclination is fixed, but this is not a problem: I did not feel any discomfort in this situation. There are two small end-to-end “pockets” between the stand and the keyboard. One is for fixing the USB cable, and the second is for the stylus. The stylus is included, but it is only suitable for devices with a resistive screen, so in my case it can only be used to pick around the ear. As you can see from the photo, the keyboard is compact, with laptop-like manners. I would even say very compact: its width is only 20cm. Of course, after a full-size keyboard, it seems quite small and typing is uncomfortable at first, but once you get the hang of it, you can type text quite well, and sometimes even touch-type. To “grope” the keys, there are special pimples on F and J, respectively. The key travel is small, but nevertheless noticeable. There is a convex edge around the perimeter of the keyboard, the purpose of which is not very clear to me, but it prevents you from pressing the space bar normally, which is why it is often “swallowed”. Although, maybe it’s just a matter of habit, we’ll see. If you look really hard, you will notice that the buttons are a little crooked, which, however, does not affect the typing at all. In my version, there are no Russian letters on the keyboard, so those for whom this is important should take care of purchasing special stickers, fortunately there are a lot of them now. But there really was something to be happy about: now, when the cursor entered the input field, the virtual keyboard did not pop up, covering most of the screen, and it was an incomparable feeling! I was also pleased with some of the keyboard shortcuts. For example, Alt+Tab shows a list of 8 recent running applications, between which you could switch (Alt+Shift+Tab works too!). The Esc button works like Back. Some standard applications have shortcuts with the Win button (for example, Win+C = contacts, and Win+L = calendar) and can be called from anywhere. Based on a tip from the comments, it became known that Fn+ and Fn+↓ work as Page Up and Page Down, respectively. If the tablet is “asleep”, then pressing any button will “wake it up”, but you will still have to unlock it via the touchscreen.
Virtual keyboard for Android tablets
Advanced option
HDMI
conclusions
If you have to work with text and/or documents, then doing this without a keyboard is quite problematic - the screen version covers most of the document area, so in addition to the tablet, a keyboard was ordered - naturally, Russified and (so that the experiment does not turn out to be too expensive) the cheapest.
For the results of a dubious experiment, welcome to cat.
And yet, the bulk of applied tasks comes down to simple tables and, again, simple text documents. When the task is to view and correct them on the fly, any aids will come in handy.
I was hoping that with the help of the mentioned phablet and an external keyboard I would be able to find just such an intermediate solution that would allow me to avoid the need to carry around a full-size tablet with a keyboard (this is more than 1.5 kg of net weight).
It is a universal solution that, in theory, should be suitable for any device measuring 7-8 inches. The tablet/phablet is secured to the cover using plastic brackets, which in turn are attached to the cover using tight elastic bands.
The keyboard is connected to the phablet using a Micro USB cable.
The weight of the case is a little more than 300 grams, according to the seller (I don’t have my own scales to check). 
The keyboard case that arrived was packed in ordinary polyethylene, without any bubble wrap or other additional protection. In my case, it did not seem to suffer from shipping, but, judging by the comments of buyers, there were other cases - when, for example, some of the keys arrived separately from the rest of the product.
At the same time, the execution itself leaves much to be desired - the keys are a little crooked, and in general the geometry of the keyboard plane is far from ideal. 
To secure the cover in the closed state there is a “strap” with a magnet; A stand is provided for surface installation; its angle is not adjustable, since it is fixed in the open state by the most elementary method - by using a piece of nylon ribbon of a fixed length. The stand, like the strap, is fixed in the closed state on the cover using a magnet. 
Above the keyboard there are green LEDs indicating the status of CapsLock, ScrollLock and NumLock. 
The first difficulty I encountered was switching the language. The standard and familiar Alt-Shift combination does not work on Windows Mobile. A search showed that a different key combination works for Win10 Mobile, namely WinKey+Space. But there is no WinKey key on the keyboard. In the comments to the order, I saw that I was not the only one who found it difficult to switch the language. And I already considered the experiment completed ahead of schedule, but empirically I calculated that the WinKey function on this keyboard is performed by the “Zzz” key, which, obviously, in other cases serves to put the device into sleep mode.
Microsoft Word Mobile in terms of use it turned out to be closest to the desktop version. This is if you do not set the goal of actively using menu items. If we are talking about “snitching” the text of the contract, then the task turns out to be quite feasible. The usual “hot keys” work (copy and paste: Ctrl-C / V / X, formatting: Ctrl-B / U / I and Ctrl-R / L / E), opening a document (Ctrl-O), repeating an action (Ctrl -Y), etc... You can navigate through the document text using arrows, which, in combination with the Fn key, perform the functions of the PageDn / PageUp / Home and End keys.
By the way, it also becomes possible to habitually switch between open applications using the Alt-TAB combination.
The Fn key, by the way, is not located very well: usually in its place is Ctrl, and fingers usually select it when you need to perform an operation using shortcuts. But let's assume that we can adapt to this.
You can, of course, control it with your fingers using the phablet’s touchscreen. In this case, sometimes the on-screen keyboard pops out, blocking the entire useful surface of the document. 
We will assume that in this part the experiment is completed in favor of the device.
In general, with mobile version Excel is inconvenient to work with or without a keyboard. Fail.
In general, my idea of using a phablet as an under-tablet, as expected, showed not very satisfactory results. Hopes that Microsoft will someday bring to fruition both Win10 Mobile and its package mobile applications, practically none. Nevertheless, at least Word documents can be edited at least. But the price for this is a multiple increase in dimensions due to the size of the case. Was the game worth the candle? Probably not.
It is likely that the functionality of the reviewed keyboard will be higher with a full-fledged tablet, but for the convenience of working with the desktop version of Windows, a touchpad is missing. At the same time, the quality of execution leaves much to be desired, even if the performance as a whole did not cause any comments.
The resulting simulacrum in my case has unreasonably large dimensions, requires adaptation to a non-standard keyboard layout, and the keyboard itself raises doubts about its reliability and durability. A Bluetooth keyboard would cost more, but would take up less space. At the same time, the problems of working with applications would remain the same - these are already “built-in” disadvantages of mobile Windows, which, alas, are pointless to fight.
Other disadvantages include the fact that the keyboard, although not very powerful, is still a consumer of energy - it is powered from the Micro USB port. Of course, it would be more logical and practical to do the opposite - for the keyboard to be equipped with its own battery and serve as an additional “power bank” for the phablet. But for $7 it’s pointless to expect such solutions.
It is this wonder that I want to tell you about in this, if I may say so, review.
connector.Characteristics:
dimensions: 22.5 x 14 x 2.8 cm (of which 20 x 7.5 cm is the keyboard)
weight: 300 g (with tablet - 640 g)
material: magic Chinese leatherette
price: $12 Appearance
When folded, the case looks like a book with a hidden magnetic clasp: 
The entire casing is slightly corrugated, so all sorts of small dust particles get clogged there, which are not so easy to dig out later. In addition, there is some smell - a kind of magical mixture of Chinese leatherette + glue + who knows what else. But if you don’t specifically sniff, it’s almost unnoticeable. I haven't tasted it, sorry. Interior
With an elegant movement of the hand, the case opens and turns into a stand with a keyboard (a la “laptop”). The magnetic clasp tends to return to its original state and therefore will have to be cleverly hidden so as not to interfere. 
By the way, using the case as a book will not work, because, firstly, the tablet begins to slip out under its weight, and secondly, there is nowhere to put the keyboard. 
The two lower mounts are rigidly fixed, and the upper one - spring-loaded - can be moved to the very edge, thereby providing the ability to hold devices from 11 to 13 cm in width. The height (or depth?) of these fasteners is 11 mm.
The leg stands almost perpendicular to the surface of the table, which is why the entire structure can collapse if you suddenly decide to move it away from you. When folded, the leg is held in place by a magnetic latch.
Keyboard
Well, now let’s move on to the main part for which all this was started - the keyboard: 
(The photo shows that these keys are even different in color, but in real life this is practically not noticeable).
Interaction with the tablet
In order for the tablet to “see” the keyboard, it must support USB Host Mode (as far as I know, these are devices with Android 3.1 and higher). My tablet immediately became friends with the keyboard, but when I wanted to have two layouts (Russian and English), some difficulties began. It turned out that it is impossible to switch layouts on the fly (except for going deep into the settings each time). After carefully googling this question, I downloaded the Russian Keyboard software from the market, after setting it up I began to switch layouts using alt+shift and was happy. Conclusion
In general, for the money ($12), the accessory turned out to be quite good, even despite some of its shortcomings. Afterword
Perhaps I missed some nuances that you would be curious to know? Ask, I will try to answer as best I can.
