Has anyone used a scanning Chinese dictionary?

[Speedy]

I was totally shocked when I stumbled upon Quicktionary yesterday, a scanning dictionary with which words on paper can be scanned and translated instantly. It's so cute. The price is also terrifying: €125.

May i request a brief review from guys who have used this device? Thanx a lot!

http://www.wizcomtech.com/eng/purchase/whereToBuy/online/default_temp.asp?Currency=euro

[rcloud19]

I actually bought one of these 10 years ago (obviously an older model, but it was interesting to see they still look exactly the same). I had actually forgotten about it as I stopped using it years ago.

I originally bought it to use a regular English dictionary for use while reading and it actually worked pretty well, but it took some getting used to as you have to scan at a specific angle and speed to get it to work. From what I remember I had a much harder time getting it to work with Chinese, but hopefully they have improved their product over the last 10 years.

[roddy]

From a learner's point of view, you may be better off using a handwriting input device or just an old fashioned radical index dictionary to look stuff up - that which is found easily, is forgotten easily (Confucius said that. Or me, just now. I forget). That said there are obvious speed and convenience advantages assuming it actually works as it says it does.

I note it uses Kingsoft for the C>E dictionary - not quite sure what that means, Kingsoft isn't an actual dictionary, it's dictionary software. Haven't used their products for years, but when I have they've seemed to just throw as many definitions as possible at the user and hope that something sticks - look up '傻瓜' and you're getting 'addlehead' and 'blockhead'. I'd be dubious about getting the kind of usage information and examples that would be useful to a learner.

Unless something's changed while I wasn't looking, the best dictionary for the learner (and sorry to the OP if he's not) is the ABC, and the best way to get that on an electronic device is Pleco. End of story.