Best phone or tablet for Pleco

[li3wei1]

I'm sure this has been asked and answered before, but the technology is always changing, so I'll ask again. What's the best way of getting my hands on Pleco, both the reader and the flashcards? I've got a museum-piece phone, a nokia from last century, and a laptop using Windows 8.1. That's it. Should I go for a smartphone, a tablet, or what? and which? I'm in the UK, and I do a fair amount of traveling on public transport. I'm also not keen on spending a lot of money, but I don't necessarily go for the lowest bid.

[Guest realmayo]

For hardware, I believe smartphone or tablet are your only two options.

For the software, Pleco is free as a basic version and that includes a basic dictionary function and a basic reader function. Don't know what the limits are on the free reader -- the full paid version isn't very expensive but you might end up getting it as part of a bundle that includes more goodies.

 

I'm perfectly happy with my Android Nexus 7 -- it's Kindle-sized, so confortable to hold and read, and not too bulky for quick look-up a dictionary. I think I got the previous generation of Nexus just as they were bringing in the new ones, so it wasn't too pricey. Edit: actually can't remember.

 

It's possible I might like reading even more on a bigger tablet, but I don't know, am already very happy indeed with current set-up.

 

If you splash out on an ipad I think Pleco can do even more, such as the reader operating as a web browser. Perhaps that will come to Android too in the future.

[roddy]

Given you don't want to spend a lot of money, I'd say look at Android devices rather than Apple. Then I think you need to decide - do you want to replace your phone with a smartphone (which would also put a lot of other language learning stuff, such as podcasts and ebooks, in your pocket) or stick with the current phone and get a tablet.

[Yorin]

I use Pleco on two Android devices, a Nexus 10 tablet and a Galaxy Nexus smartphone.

 

Wouldn't want to do without my smartphone, because I can use it anytime and anywhere, whenever a

question about the Chinese language comes up. Also, the various other benefits (being able to look

something up on the internet, messaging, calendar, navigation, making my MP3 player obsolete etc.)

are just too many.

 

The tablet I use at home. It's just a lot more comfortable because the screen is so much bigger and

Pleco makes good use of this. The menus are easier to access and there's more space to display more

content at once.

 

For me, the smartphone is the swiss knife that I need to "survive", and the tablet is a luxury.

But which of those you need depends on where and how you want to use it.

[skylee]

Get a phablet. Like a Samsung Galaxy Note 3. I think Samsung Notes are great (mine is a Note 2). I don't use Pleco much so can't comment on it.

[Guest realmayo]

For me, I think they'd be too small to sit down with and read a book on for an hour or two?

[hackinger]

Hi,

 

I have the Galaxy Note 2 which has a  5.5 inch screen. I can use the Pleco reader for one hour without a problem. The Note is not really usable in direct sunlight though. The Notes are not that cheap especially if you want the up to date model.

 

I also have a Nexus 7 which has (unsurprisingly) a 7 inch screen. It is ideal for the Pleco reader, but the Galaxy Note 2 is always with me. If one considers  the price performance ratio it is hard to beat the Nexus 7 Wifi model. The Nexus 7 is not very good in direct sunlight either.

 

Cheers

 

hackinger

[li3wei1]

Sorry to be stupid, but does Pleco need internet access or does it work offline?

[hackinger]

It works offline. (Of course you need internet access occasionally to load and update Pleco and components ...)

[imron]

If price is an issue, consider a second hand iDevice.  An iPhone 5 or 4s will run Pleco just fine, and is a more than capable phone, and will be significantly cheaper than a new device.

I personally would recommend against a tablet as it becomes one more thing to carry around with you in addition to your phone.  Back in the day, I used to use a Palm Pilot for Pleco and it's much nicer now to have Pleco integrated in my phone compared to having a separate 'pleco device'.  I would also recommend against a phablet because it's too big to use comfortably as a phone and too small to use comfortably as a tablet.

For the addons, basic Pleco is free, but personally I don't consider that as real Pleco.  At a minimum, I'd recommend the flashcard module, the ABC Chinese-English dictionary, and if you feel your Chinese is up to it, a Chinese-Chinese dictionary (I have the Xiandai Guifan Cidian, and find it to be excellent).  Then also I guess the reader plugin.

[skylee]

I think a phablet's size is exactly what attracts me - it is perfect as a phone and makes it unnecessary to carry a tablet. I can read books comfortably on my Note 2. But I can understand that some people do prefer smaller devices. And it is true that the newest models can be expensive.

If the user needs to read under sunlight, then of course he needs to take this into account.

[deathtrap]

I'll second skylee's recommendation of a phablet. I love my Galaxy Note 2. It's a great size and I find myself using full fledged tablets less and less. The pen and pleco's handwriting recognition is a great combination even though you don't have to use the pen but it's nice practice for writing characters. I won't be upgrading the Note 2 for a while yet because it's a very capable device. I would recommend against an iPhone because the screen size is so small that it will limit you but that's only because I've seen how comfortable a 5.5 inch device can be.

 

The Note 2's screen is very comfortable to read a book on if you're using it in landscape orientation but of course you're not going to fit a full A4 page on the screen and still have the text legible as you would with a 10 inch tablet.

 

If you're just looking for a pure tablet device, you can't go wrong with a Nexus 7 if they sell them where you live,  The Note 8.0 is a capable device but it's bit pricier and I don't like the 16:9 display ratio in a tablet, it comes with a pen though.

 

Of course the latest iPad and iPad mini are very good devices and their screens are very crisp and easy to read off of. Highly Worth it if you don't mind the slightly higher price points. I highly recommend either of them. You can never go wrong with the iPad's as they are great devices with excellent build quality and battery life.

 

For an over exaggerated, unrealistic recommendation, and If you want to splurge, go all out and get the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2. Yes it's stupid expensive for an Android tablet and near the price of a full fledged Surface Pro 2 Tablet which IMO is damn near the holy grail of tablets.

 

On an unrelated note, I hate the term "phablet". We should have stuck with "Superphone" instead!

 

I've given you my opinion and the rest is up to you and where your budget lies. I could help you a bit more if you let me know what your budget is like.

[lechuan]

I tend to use Pleco on a tablet when I'm using the Pleco Reader module. For everyday dictionary lookup, I find the phone more convenient.

 

If I could only choose one, I'd go with a tablet, mainly because I like to read a lot on my tablet, and I don't mind lugging around my tablet everywhere in a knapsack or man-purse.

[gato]

Since you are still using an ancient Nokia phone, I'd recommend that you upgrade your phone to Android or iPhone first.  This will give you the most value for your money.  

 

As for the best phone, it depends on your price range.  If you give us your budget, we can try to recommend you the best USD 200 phone or the best USD 600 phone.  

[Guest realmayo]

Li3wei3, I'd suggest you consider what you'd use Pleco for the most.

 

If it's the dictionary, smartphone's probably best because you don't need anything bigger and you've got a nice new phone. You can whip it out whenever and wherever you fancy. Useful if you're in China. But I'd hate to read for a long time on it. 

 

For the reader, personally I wouldn't like to read on anything smaller (or bigger) than my 7-inch little tablet. And the dictionary works perfect on that too.

 

It costs no more to run Pleco on both, if you eventually end up with both phone and tablet.

[dwq]

I don't use Pleco but in my experience, a phone (even a 6" phablet) you can still put in your pocket (big pocket for phablet) and whip out with one hand, suitable for carrying around and looking up things at a whim.

 

A tablet 7" or larger really requires carrying in a bag and operated with both hands, more suitable for sitting down and reading a ebook on.

[Lu]

I second imron's suggestion of buying a second-hand device. If you ask around, you have a good chance that some acquaintance or the other has replaced their phone and can pass on their previous phone, and older models should run Pleco just fine. You don't even need a phone contract, you can just use wifi when you need to get online.

Of course, you can also take the plunge and get a newer smartphone for all the other things you can do with it. Personally I wouldn't get a Galaxy Note-sized phone, I find them too big (I already think my S3 is on the large side), but it depends on what you want to do with it: mostly tablet-y stuff or more phoning. And on how large your pockets are or if you're willing to carry it around in a bag.

[roddy]

Liwei, did you end up making a purchase? How are you getting on with it?

[hedwards]

A second hand device should work just fine. I was running Pleco without issues on a Nexus One until a few weeks ago when it finally died. And that had like a 500mhz processor and a quarter gig of RAM.

 

Pretty much any Android phone made within the last year should handle it without too much trouble the main thing to consider is that Pleco is rather large when you start downloading some of those dictionaries, so you want to make sure you have the option of using external storage and you might need link2sd to move it to the external card.

[mikelove]

Note on this: the public beta of our new 3.1 update requires Android 4.0 or later, and the final version probably will too. We aren't going to stop offering the old version when we launch that new one, so as long as your phone is running 2.2 or later (the oldest we've ever supported) you should have no trouble running Pleco, but for the latest and greatest you'll need 4.0.

 

iOS phones are available secondhand too, and tend to be supported with OS updates for longer than their Android counterparts (the iPhone 4 was released in June 2010 and still runs the latest version of iOS, albeit rather pokily), but if you prefer Android then I'd recommend that you look for a minimum of Android 4.1 (considerably smoother than 4.0) and an 'xhdpi' display (the Android equivalent of Apple's "Retina") which on spec sheets usually means it's 240 dpi or higher - that could be a midrange new phone or a high-end used phone.