hand held translators

[jrm]

Anyone have any experience with hand held translators?

[TwoBitBandit]

... in response to hand held translators, posted by jrm on Mar 30, 2004

I bought the Partner ER200DM for about $100.

It's faster than using the dictionary if you want to find something quickly.

I think that's about the best thing that can be said about it.

It's missing a lot of important words.  A few of the translations it comes up with are sometimes off-the-wall.  I've showed some of them that didn't seem to make sense to my Russian teacher, and she said they were just flat-out wrong.

It doesn't scan the keyboard very fast...if you type quickly it drops characters.  You have to type slowly.

If I had known then what I know about it now, I would have spent $200-$300 and bought a better one.

[MarkInTx]

... in response to hand held translators, posted by jrm on Mar 30, 2004

The one I bought (Franklin) was cheap.

It was also valuable, but I would not say "invaluable". Meaning that it helped a little, especially at restaurants, but it is amazing how many words are simply not in it.

I wouldn't have wanted to rely soley on it to get around with, that's for sure.

But the one time that I needed to find a men's room in a department store, it was sure handy!

I bought mine at Fry's, and I can't remember how much it was now, but I think it was about $50.