Google Play. Google Keyboard. Gesture Typing. Swipe to type.

You might think that this post is a little obvious as every phone comes with a keyboard.

This is true, but there's a few things different about the Google Keyboard from the Google Play market - it has a swipe to type capability and also has different alphabets, such as Japanese, and has built in dictionaries for more than 25 languages.

Samsung, HTC and Sony phones have their own stock keyboards and from my old experience, they are all missing swipe to type.

For me, it's the swipe function that wins me. There's no going back from it.
To quote Google, "Glide through letters with Gesture Typing".
I find I can always tell people who are stuck with iPhones as I see them slowly and painstakingly tapping out single letters. It's the same with people who have Android phones but have not yet experimented with different keyboards.

Here's the link on Google Play.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.latin&hl=en

Install and enable from Settings - Language and input.

Enable the Google Keyboard.

Enable Gesture Typing.

Then try it out. The secret is not to rush, you can drag your finger around as slow as you want.

The Japanese Input is pretty clever too, if you are trying to learn Japanese.