These days it’s hard to have a conversation on a smartphone through the means of chat or text messaging without emoji making their way into the mix. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation. Now, if you’re someone who loves to use emoji in their chats or text messages, then you may want to consider checking out an app called Sticker Market, as this app replaces your standard keyboard app that comes on the device by default and gives you easy access to all kinds of emoji and stickers. Though it also has other fun features, so let’s take a look and see what it has to offer.
For starters, before you can start using the app you’ll need to head to the Play Store and download Sticker Market: Emoji Keyboard and install it on your device.
Upon opening the app you’ll be asked to sign in with an account, and you have options to do this with Facebook or a Google account, or you can simply register with an email if you prefer.
On the main screen when you are finished with registering, you’ll have options for opening up the sticker market section of the app, which contains the different stickers, GIF images, and templates. There is also a button for the Sticker Keyboard menu settings, and a button for the sticker cam, which is the image you see highlighted above.
Inside the sticker market is where you’ll download all of the stickers, templates, and GIF images you want to use with this keyboard, and you can browse them in different categories like “trending” and “top free.” There will also be some paid ones you can choose to pick up as well and these will cost anywhere from what looks like $0.99 to $2.99.
You can access the different parts of the app from the hamburger menu as well, but this is where you can also get to extra options and information, like how much cloud storage you have, and you can also see what you have stored in the cloud including face emojis, GIFs, templates, and stickers.
To store things in the cloud you’ll need to upload them first, and when you tap on one of the menus under the cloud options you’ll see an upload button in the top right corner of the screen. When you tap that you’ll be taken to the screen you see above where you can add tags to your GIF first before you complete the upload.
There are also tabs for both personal and public GIF, templates, or stickers that you’ve uploaded depending on whether or not you made your uploads public for other users to see. The app also has a toggle where you can enable the autoplaying of GIF images if you want, though since it’s a toggle (which is on by default) you can turn this off and you would need to tap them to have them play.
Under the settings menu you can find the different language options for the app, which includes language support for English, Spanish, Russian, Armenian, German, and French.
The settings menu is also where you can find and apply different themes to your keyboards for an added layer of personalization, though the app only has two supported themes – light and dark – and it’s not clear whether or not the app will add more in future updates. Hopefully though more themes will be added.
Like any other keyboard, Sticker Market: Emoji Keyboard lets you type in any app you have installed, as it fully replaces your other keyboards. Though also like any other keyboard it’s super easy to switch back to another keyboard if you want to. More than some other keyboards though it allows a handful of other additions to make the keyboard more robust, most notably the part of the app which it derives its namesake from. Emoji. You have loads of emoji options to enhance your messages and chats, and on top of it you have an easy way to add in stickers and GIF images too. The cherries on top are the easy access to such things due to the ability to store them in the cloud.
Ratings
- Speed (5/5) – Setup was quick and only took a few seconds, and the app runs pretty smoothly.
- Features (4.5/5) – Quite a few things that add to the overall experience. GIF adds are a nice touch.
- Theme (5/5) – A modern theme that keeps to the style of Material Design.
- Overall (4.5/5) – Definitely a nice app. Prediction seems to be pretty good and on par with other keyboards, and it makes emoji, GIFs, and stickers easy to add into any message or chat.
Pros
- Stickers, emoji, and GIFs are easily added into messages and chats
- Cloud storage for even faster access to favorites
- Lots of free downloadable packs
- Decent prediction
- Nice UI
- Themes
Cons
- Only two theme options, though perhaps more will be added.
When it comes down to it Sticker Market: Emoji Keyboard is a pretty decent keyboard replacement app and it has lots to offer. Everything seems to work pretty good, the app looks nice so it’s easy on the eyes when interacting with its different features, and who could say no to easy access to GIFs and stickers to add into messages. If you’re looking for a nice free option for a keyboard replacement app, check this one out and see how it stacks up for your own personal needs and you shouldn’t be disappointed.