Customer Reviews
A good electronic dictionary for its price.
A good electronic dictionary for its price. It's light-weight and pocket-size, easy to use. The drawback about it is that is doesn't have enough vocabulary I need. So, if you have more budget, consider buying other electronic dictionaries with more vocabulary.
I don't know if the dictionary is any good...
...because it broke before I really had a chance to use it. I bought this dictionary to use at school, but it didn't even last a day in my backpack. The screen cracked beyond repair, and the plastic cover did nothing to protect it. My sister had one of these too, and she had the same problem. If it can't last in any place where it might get banged around a bit, it's not be very durable.
A person mentioned that it doesn't have scroll buttons. It does have scroll buttons, but I had difficulty finding them because they're on the side, not where the instructions booklet said they are. When I did find them, they were somewhat difficult to use because they're hard to press.
Maybe the dictionary is good, but if you plan on carrying this around with you, I don't recommend it.
Rather disappointing - censored and lacking
I bought this for my girlfriend, who wanted an electronic dictionary to use while reading books or doing crosswords.
Overall, we're rather disappointed, to the extent that we're going to return it and get a different model. The specifications claim it is the "Merriam Webster Dictionary", but it lacks definitions of many words. Some of the definitions are laconic, one-liners, where a little more explanation would be nice. I think it's rather dishonest to portray this as the Merriam Webster dictionary when it lacks so many words that are in the real one. For example, while doing a crossword we looked up "Quilter" in the online dictionary - not found, but it _is_ in the real M-W.
Another big issue - anything that's vaguely slang-like or potentially offensive has been scrubbed from the dictionary. This might be good if you wanted to offer it as a gift to a child (though, there is already a children's version for that), but it's rather condescending for adult users. Slang and swear words are an important part of the language, and to suppress them from a dictionary makes it that much less useful, not to mention the Orwellian overtones. (I believe the manufacturer, Franklin, has some connection with Christianity - they seem to offer a lot of Bible add-ons for their products and also sell Bibles - which may explain the "censorship".)
I didn't have it for long enough to confirm or deny what others say about the poor battery life.
Pros: screen is easy to read. Interface is clean and simple to use. Neat plastic cover to protect the front.
Cons: many missing words - swear words and slang. Short, terse definitions. Few options for configuring the unit.
