iPhone or Android phone for Pleco & Chinese learning

[fritz]

Hi!

I'm thinking about buying a smartphone and choosing between the iPhone 4 and a good Android phone such as Samsung Galaxy or one in the HTC Desire series.

Plecodict is central in my decision in going for a smartphone, so ease/speed of opening up the application and looking up words is important. I know that the Android version of Pleco hasn't come out yet but I presume it will be similar to the iPhone one in functionality. The OCR function on Pleco iPhone looks very cool but to be honest I usually just type in the pinyin so not much need to draw characters/use OCR.

I also want to listen to Chinese radio over the Internet and listen to downloaded Chinese audio files/read downloaded Chinese text documents or PDFs. I've never handled files before on an iPhone so not sure how easy it is, but suspect it will be more tricky than just dragging and dropping from my PC. I will also use the browser extensively to read Chinese newspapers on my way to work and may need to look up words therein.

What is your view? Anyone of you holding out for the Android version of Pleco because the iPhone itself is more cumbersome to use?

[gato]

I vote for iPhone. Too lazy to give reasons here. A search on google for "iphone android comparison" should yield plenty of detailed comparisons.

There is one specifically regarding studying Chinese at Sinosplice:

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/08/31/back-to-the-iphone-its-all-about-chinese

Back to the iPhone (it’s all about Chinese!)

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/09/17/in-defense-of-hanping-and-android

In Defense of Hanping (and Android)

I have the following Chinese-related apps (some only remotely related) on my iPhone, for your reference:

21世纪经济报道

南方都市报

苹果日报

财新媒体

新京报

新民网

南方周末

南方人物周刊

凤凰周刊

万年历

全国影讯

中国天气

古诗词

有道词典

Pleco Dictionary

ChineseIdiom (成语词典)

MobileRSS (access Google Reader)

Stanza (eReader)

Instapaper (for saving website from desktop to be read on mobile)

Readitlater (similar to Instapaper)

Goodreader (good for reading large PDFs)

Skype

Tunein Radio (listen to 40,000 radio stations around the world)

Stitcher Radio

[Sarevok]

Anyone of you holding out for the Android version of Pleco because the iPhone itself is more cumbersome to use?

Well, I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the Android version release. I will avoid my usual rant about iPhone as much of that is highly subjective, there is however one objective reason for not buying the Apple product - the lack of a hardware keyboard. I happen to do quite a lot of writing in situations where laptop isn't always nearby or would be

difficult to use... and pen & paper is just so '80s

My dream device is something like HTC Desire Z, with Pleco running on it. Whether that would be possible on the actual Desire Z is still unknown as Pleco might require Gingerbread in the end (and there is only a handful of devices expected to be able to run that, since there are some HW limitations). Hopefully, we'll know more soon...

[gato]

iPhone's screen keyboard is not too bad. If extensive writing needs to be done, iPhone 4 can be used with a wireless bluetooth keyboard.

[fritz]

Gato, many thanks for that list and advice. I decided to go buy one but realised its out of stock throughout Hong Kong - probably mainland tourists buying up all of them over the holidays! I'll try to buy one in the UK next week instead...

I think the virtual keyboard on the iPhone should be fine. Re screen keyboards, Swype looks cool too but not sure if it's that revolutionary

[hanxue]

Hey guys, I'm planning on getting my first iPhone soon. I'm an advanced Chinese learner who always loves to have the best and most abundant dictionaries possible (in terms of the number of entries etc.). So once I get my iPhone I'll as well be purchasing Pleco. My question would be: which bundle should I purchase? Professional or Complete Bundle?

[Sarevok]

Well, if you are

an advanced Chinese learner who always loves to have the best and most abundant dictionaries possible (in terms of the number of entries etc.)

then the Complete bundle would be most appropriate for you - would have purchased it myself if it was available back when I bought my first PDA. Getting the additional dictionaries later was more expensive (by roughly 50 bucks, but hey, even that counts).

[hanxue]

But from what I understood the "Complete Bundle" includes some beginners' dictionaries and other beginner stuff - would it not be redundant?

[mikelove]

It's a bit redundant if you're an advanced speaker, but that's why with an educational discount the price difference between Professional and Complete is the same as the price of the Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian - we make the choice easy by effectively giving you all of the other extra dictionaries for free if you want that one. (this may change sometime in 2011 once we launch several more advanced-speaker-oriented dictionaries, though)

[Sarevok]

But from what I understood the "Complete Bundle" includes some beginners' dictionaries and other beginner stuff - would it not be redundant?

You are probably referring to the "Tuttle Learner's Dictionary", which is targeted mostly at beginners, but it can still have some uses even for an advanced learner - "sentence mining" comes to mind... don't know about other beginner stuff, but I don't watch the Apple version very closely (though the dictionary related content should be the same as on WM)

[gato]

Which dictionary is it with the "PLC" acronym? Is that the "A C-E Dictionary"? I don't see it included in the professional bundle. This dictionary surprisingly has definitions for some words that are missing from the ABC.

[hanxue]

I see, thanks guys.

Mike, what dictionaries will you be adding in 2011?

[mikelove]

Which dictionary is it with the "PLC" acronym? Is that the "A C-E Dictionary"? I don't see it included in the professional bundle. This dictionary surprisingly has definitions for some words that are missing from the ABC.

More or less - on iPhone it's free (different licensing situation) and there are a few changes from the Palm/WM version; it does have some words that are missing in ABC.

Mike, what dictionaries will you be adding in 2011?

We've only officially announced one so far - the 《古汉语大辞典》 also known as the 《古代汉语大辞典》 from 上海辞书出版社; really fantastic Classical Chinese dictionary, though it's Chinese-only. There are a couple of other things in the works that we haven't announced yet, though. (in some cases because the contracts still aren't signed - we're about 80% confident we've got a Cantonese one, for example, but we won't announce the name until the signatures / royalty advance / data file delivery / etc are done)

[hanxue]

Wow, Classical Chinese dict sounds great!! Which quarter of the year are you aiming at for the release?

Another dictionary to consider would be 成语 as wel as 谚语、俗语 - that would be really awesome to have...

[mikelove]

Wow, Classical Chinese dict sounds great!! Which quarter of the year are you aiming at for the release?

Another dictionary to consider would be 成语 as wel as 谚语、俗语 - that would be really awesome to have...

Really not sure about that - we'd ideally like to release a couple of these at the same time so we can limit the amount of bundle reshuffling we need to do. I've got a whole stack of 多功能 成语 dictionaries on my desk right now - given how many publishers there are making the darn things I'm pretty confident we'll get one, though we're much less further along in the process for that.

[langxia]

So is the iphone still the best choice at the moment or is there another good choice out there (maybe a less expensive one)? If the iphone is still the best choice what would be the best place to buy an iphone in beijing ?

[mikelove]

An iPod Touch 4th-gen would work well too, and especially in China they're a whole lot cheaper - almost the same experience as on an iPhone except that OCR doesn't (officially) work. But an update with improved still-image OCR support (so you can load images from a camera) should be out within the next couple of weeks, and live OCR works pretty well on the iPod even now with an add-on macro lens (should be very easy to find if you dig around Zhongguancun - little thing that attaches to the phone with a magnet) - you can go to this page to register your iPod with us to override the lockout on purchasing OCR on non-autofocus devices.

[langxia]

Thanks for the fast reply. I allready thought about getting the ipod-touch, but while this is a viable option during winter (more pockets) I hardly imagine myself running around with an ipod touch and a mobile phone during summer, so I guess I will go for an iphone.

Which leaves me with my other question, do people have experience with buying iphones in beijing. What would be the best option ? In the apple store or is it safe to buy one at another place ?

[roddy]

That's probably worth another topic.

[hanxue]

I wouldn't buy anywhere else but in an Apple Store. China has way too many fishy places and some of their fake iPhone models are look so damn real that it's really hard to tell it's fake. Just buy it at an official store and you'll save yourself any worries.