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I would highly recommend this electronic dictionary. Fits in a shirt pocket, backpack or purse. I have had other electronic pocket dictionaries and none of them had the ease of use as does this one.
I just got my new pocket dictionary, Sharp's PW - E550. Great keyboard and the zoom feature on the screen is a real eye saver, especially when you've been reading or studying for hours. Wow.
When you look up a word it gives you a full definition unlike so many that give a greatly simplified definition. Oh yea, it runs on one AAA battery; a real plus. I put it through the paces and in came up with flying marks.
Easy to use and navigate.
It's great for family dinner time conversations as a resource and for using in bed late at night while reading a book. It is very user friendly and can probably do more than we have used it for. It has more words included than any other products we've tried. I have bought four for gifts and family. This product is great for any avid readers who come across new words, scrabble players or spelling addicts.
Couldn't live without it. I'm thinking to get another one as a back up unit. One of the most useful purchases I've ever made. I bought this item almost four years ago and since then I use it everyday.
It doesn't assume that there are any words, no matter how short, that you can naturally or easily pronounce without its assistance. Like another reviewer suggested, e-flashcards would be nice. What I love most is that it has pronunciation symbols for just about every word I've looked up (for words without a pronunciation key, I've found the keys to be available for their corresponding root words). Like most electronics, it is very fragile; reviewers have had screens break after just 1 fall, and it's unlikely Sharp will do anything for you then.Edit: I thought of another fault - the dictionary only shows a history of the last 30 words you looked up. I just received this from Amazon a couple days ago and randomly browsed through the Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate dictionary for unfamiliar words to see if they were in the Sharp e-dictionary.
I would have liked to have a larger "word bank", perhaps with a capacity of a few hundred words (limitless would be better). I've read on Amazon UK reviews that the British version containing the "Oxford Dictionary of English" (PW-E500 or PW-E300) omits pronunciation keys for many words (such as "revel"), which I think is one of the most important features of any non-talking dictionary. You can't control what's in the history (of the dict, thesaurus, or grammar book) - as you search for new entries, the oldest entry is automatically erased from the list. My mom's Kim Tu Dien Vietnamese-English dictionary had user-created flashcards, plus a tetris and hangman game.those Kim Tu Diens are great if you want to learn Vietnamese or are Vietnamese and learning English (but also very pricey). Overall, I am so pleased with my new dictionary. Don't toss your print dictionary - you'll need it for the rare word that Sharp cannot define.
The following words in M-W could not be defined:assumpsi, acaulescent, achondrite, acock, acrocentric, archaic smile, autogenic (although its synonym, autogenous, was there), betta (has Siamese fighting fish, however), cack-handed, celestite, churro (a yummy snack), echelle, ecesis, engild, ergogenic, festinate, gimmal, gormless (it includes several other British terms, though), guidwillie, immerge, junker, naumachia, parcener, piggin, rareripe, scrannel, seraphim, thin-skinned (available in Phrase Search), many medical/chemical/biology/disease terms in M-W but not in Sharp, some biblical words/references, some dog breeds and obscure plant/animal names, Scottish-derived words, some archaic words (the large majority of uncommon words I looked up were available in the Sharp). I guess Sharp assumes British folks don't need help with pronouncing certain words. I recommend this to anyone who reads anything, and students, as long as they know how to take care of their things. I doubt I'd have ever encountered most of the words omitted in the Sharp PW-E550 had I not purposively searched them out. Garner's grammar guide is especially fun to peruse - it's like Strunk and White with a lot more entries and excerpted examples of what is right/wrong. This is the only reason I decided to go for the PW-E550 - although it has 100,000 fewer definitions, I can trust it to have pronunciation keys for words that I am not sure how to say aloud.
It will even teach you how to pronounce monosyllabic words such as dog, foot, hat, me, I, and so. The Canadian version (PW-E560), for sale at Staples in Canada, features the same dictionary as UK version (plus a comprehensive French-English dictionary) so it probably also lacks pronunciation keys for some words.
A great tool for student at all ages. This dictionary works great for him and me. My son started Kingdergarten and had already outgrown my vacabulary. Well he is advanced reader and I grew up in China, what can you say.
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