Two-way edictionary

[huaqiao06]

hi, I'm in Beiijing now and would like advice on buying a good C-E/E-C edictionary.

I'd prefer to have the following functions, if available:

- giving definitions for characters drawn on the sensepad

- translating sentences, not just individual words

- thesaurus

I'm told the only two brands to consider are 快易典 and Besta, and that I should be able to get one for 700-800Y after bargaining.

Can people suggest places to look (other than Zhongguancun)?

[lemur]

My votes goes for getting a device which can run PlecoDict. Search the forum for more information.

[tooironic]

步步高's pretty damn good. It has all the features you could want. The only downside is it doesn't come with any traditional character dictionaries. (Although you can input trad chars, they just can't be defined by themselves.)

[imron]

If you have a Windows Mobile smart phone or a Palm, you really can't go wrong with Pleco. Version 2 has proper audio recordings of words (i.e. not computer generated), stroke-order animations, handwriting recognition, flashcards with a built-in repetition spacing engine, a document reader with popup definitions, chinese-english, english-chinese and chinese-chinese dictionaries and more.

It does not translate sentences in one batch, but you can use the document reader to go a word at a time. It also doesn't have a thesaurus.

[roddy]

Isn't 步步高 a whole range of dictionaries? Which one is being recommended?

[tooironic]

The one I bought is a cibox 9588 (http://www.eebbk.com/product/9588.htm)

But it's not the best one you can get. Other (more expensive) models have cameras and extra features (one of them is a hip top and looks delicious).

Disclaimer: technically it's meant for Chinese speakers learning English, but that doesn't get in the way of its functionality.