Merriam Webster Electronic Speaking Dictionary and Thesaurus

The cheap model is a VERY bad deal for two reasons:
(1) The display is very difficult to read (even configured with large type size).
(2) It is lacking in vocabulary. What is the point of carrying along a dictionary that ignores the meaning of 100,000 words?

The expensive model is a wonderful deal for several reasons:
(1) The display is excellent even in the small print size. I spend hours playing games and my eyes don't get strained.
(2) It has twice the vocabulary of the cheaper model (200,000 words) and it pronounces the words.
(3) It has several powerful dictionary and thesaurus tools and a cornucopia of extra features laid out in a very friendly interface.
(4) It has several Learning Tools, including the SAT word list, flashcards, speaking spelling bee and a grammar guide.
(5) You can add words to the dictionary if you want to. It also accepts book cards.
(6) After looking up a word in the dictionary, you can add it to your personal list and review it as a flash card. What a great idea!
(7) It has 12 educational vocabulary games that are a lot of fun. Each game has five levels: beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert and wizard. You can also configure the games to use only the SAT vocabulary.
(8) It also has a calculator, metric converter, a clock and a databank. Each one of the extras is easy to find and yet do not compete with the dictionary. Every time you turn the machine on it works by default as a dictionary. Perfect!

OK folks, now the bad news. While the cheap model is easy to find, you won't find the expensive model in most computer stores, even the large ones. So most customers end up buying the wrong model, like I did.

For some reason, most shop owners do not leave expensive electronic products on display. If the machine costs around 100 dollars, they hide it in a secret chamber. I bought the cheap model because it was the only one I could find. Later on I ordered the top Franklin model from Amazon.

All Franklin models have a similar name. I noticed that some Amazon reviewers who gave this product a low rating were actually writing about a different model. So don't get yourself confused. Make a note of the full name of the top model: Franklin Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition Speaking.


Good, but there's better   March 28, 2006
J. Wang (Los Angeles, CA USA)
235 out of 247 found this review helpful

I'm a big electronic dictionary geek - I own four of them. Two of them for languages (Japanese and Chinese) and two for English. I'm a writer and I am constantly reading and looking up words, and I like to be able to do away from my computer because honestly, who wants to lug around a laptop when they just want to take a book out to a coffee shop?

I own both the Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Speaking Dictionary (with a Concise Columbia Encyclopedia card) and the Sharp PW-E550. I owned the Merriam-Webster first, then got the Sharp, and actually bought the Seiko Concise Encyclopedia Britannica for a while before I returned that one. Here's a comparison between the MW and the Sharp, with a brief mention of the Seiko:

- Both the MW and the Sharp have a similar range of definitions. There are some words I could find in the MW I couldn't in the Sharp (McGuffin), and there are some I could find in the Sharp but not the MW (phylogenic, the Bowery). I find that the MW tends to have slightly more in-depth definitions and the Sharp one reads a bit more concise and colloquial. The Sharp provides examples of usage while the MW doesn't. Both have good etymologies.

- The MW doesn't have a visual pronounciation key, while the Sharp does. That's because the MW speaks out the words. This to me is kind of silly because you don't always want to hear the words out loud (like, in a library, or just about anywhere public), even if there's a headphone jack. What became problematic was that the speaking gizmo on my MW broke after a few months, and now I can't even hear the pronounciation even if I want to. I just hear a bunch of static when I hit the "pronounce" button.

- The Sharp will list all the words possible with each input of a letter (i.e., if you punch in "a" it'll list all the words that begin with "a," then if you punch in "b" it'll list all the words that begin with "ab" until you get to the word you want. The MW waits until you input all the letters and hit "enter," then it searches until it finds something. It takes about a second or two for it to find something that is in its dictionary, but if you punch in something with the wrong spelling or it just doesn't know, it'll take a while, maybe five seconds, which gets kind of exasperating, especially once you get used to the Sharp.

- The Sharp, when you turn it on, displays exactly what you had when you last had it on. The MW always starts with the same default screen. I love this ability, though there's one slight inconvenience - if you had entered letters before you turned off the Sharp the letters will still be there when you turn it back on, meaning you have to hit "clear" to start a new search. The Sharp has a memory feature, that goes back some forty or so of your last entries, while the MW doesn't.

- The buttons on the MW are hard and they hurt after prolonged usage. The buttons on the Sharp are pretty soft, which ends up with the opposite problem: you may not push hard enough on them at times or you may push more than one button if you do so hurriedly.

- The Concise Encyclopedia that I got with the MW is extremely painful to use. It's slower than the dictionary and when you do page up or page down it often goes straight to the previous or next entry. Otherwise it provides some decent amount of information at your fingertips. I'm just afraid of the tediousness of it all.

- The leather flip cover for the MW is really flimsy, while the Sharp is neatly self-protecting. I also like how you can open the whole thing 180 degrees, which is something the Seiko can't do. The Seiko only opens up to about 135 degrees, which might seem adequate until you get used to the Sharp.

- The games that come with the MW aren't so great. I like the idea of creating your own wordlist, but it barely takes any, maybe 20 maximum. After playing with them a bit my first week with the MW, I stopped using the game function.

- The Sharp has a grammar guide that I hardly ever use. I suppose it could be handy, but it just feels impractical.

For a long while I carried around both the MW and the Sharp, with Sharp being my first resource then, if I have to, the MW, and if I really have to, the Concise Encyclopedia in the MW. After a while I just ditched the MW and now I only use the Sharp. It is a far better experience, and it's become an indispensible tool. I was excited to check out the Seiko when it came out, but for the price I was quite disappointed. The user experience, while better than the MW, pales compared to the Sharp. The entries in the Seiko are great, a lot of information and depth, but most of the terms in there are in the Sharp anyway, just not with as much detail. For $180, I decided I could just stick with the Sharp for basic concepts on the proper nouns, and head to my laptop when I want more in-depth detail.

Overall, Sharp has converted me. The MW now sits on my bookshelf like the real, paper dictionaries it tried to replace.


Portable, instant, and lots of definitions- Dictionary!   July 26, 2003
E Tanhueco (NY USA)
221 out of 228 found this review helpful

1. Very good LCD.
2. Beautiful keys layouts.
3. Mispelled words are corrected. No need to type the word correctly. This is the best feature I like, because it saves me time and energy. As long as it spelled as it is pronounced, the computer will give you choice of words.
4. Looking for sets of words, just press * plus the starting or ending of the word and you will get list of them. (example: *ile, will give you words from agile to exile!
5. It pronounces the word.
6. Very handy tool and lots of clear, down-to-earth definitions.
7. Very good gift for those who like to read, write, study, or just have fun with words. Remember words have power!


hard to read   November 7, 2003
Artist (Irvine, CA USA)
51 out of 57 found this review helpful

This little dictionary is very convenient to use, but the display is hard to read. It has black lettering on a dark gray background and there's also usually some glare on the screen from the reading light source. My grandson's Gameboy SP has a much better way of displaying content for about the same price. Franklin should adopt it. No way would I ever try to read a book on this thing (I'd go blind), so forget the book card reader function. The pronunciation feature is nice, except that the electronic pronouncer sounds muffled, as though the speaker had marbles in her mouth. Think Sean Connery or Michael Mc Donald. Sometimes certain consonants are mispronounced. The games were wasted on me and the calculator is too awkward to bother with. I have no need for a clock, currency converter, etc. I wear a watch and hang out mostly where dollars are accepted. I'd rather have common latin and french phrases translated than have all these useless gadgets. Franklin would have done better to focus strictly on convenience for the kind of reader that uses a dictionary. Kids who use dictionaries will use their Gameboys for games. The letters of the keyboard could have been spaced a bit further apart for easier use and avoidance of errors. I have the feeling it was designed for fingers about half the size of mine and I'm a small female. (I also would have preferred the Dvorak keyboard, but I understand that very few people would find that appealing.)

I'm glad I have this, even though it is hard to read (my main criticism), but I think I paid too much (I paid $99, felt sort of cheated when it went on sale for $89 so soon after my purchase, and truly feel it's worth more like $50). Had I known how hard to read it is I'd have still bought it if it had cost less. Still, it's very nice not to have to search through a heavy, thick dictionary. When I'm reading away from home this is very, very convenient. Okay, maybe it's worth $60.

I gave it 3 stars, but 3 1/2 would be more accurate. The 5 star ratings threw me off and left me disappointed after my own experience of this dictionary.


Decent, but not excellent, and here's why   August 16, 2005
Gadgester (New York)
48 out of 53 found this review helpful

It's been a long time since I last took the SAT, and increasingly I find myself encountering words that I know I used to know but can no longer recognize. It turned into embarassment a month ago when I tried to read out a story for a kid and there were half a dozen words I either didn't know the meanings or how to pronounce! Time to get a dictionary.

So I picked up this Franklin Speaking Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition. (That's its full official product name.) I chose it because of its speaking feature. I found the price a bit too high, but I was willing to shell out the dough for the Franklin name as well as the venerable Merriam-Webster brand. (My first real dictionary was an M-W.)

Upon receiving the Franklin and thoroughly playing with it, I find myself both excited and disappointed. Here's why.

This electronic dictionary has a lot of features. It has a dictionary with a claimed vocabulary for 200,000 words. (But who's counting?) There's also a 500,000-entry thesaurus. Then there are lots of learning tools (like an SAT word list) and games (like "hangman" and "letris"). You can even turn on a setting called "learn a word" so every time you turn on the dictionary, a word and its definition are displayed, allowing you to build up your vocabulary randomly.

The dictionary feature is the one I bought this for, and for the most part it's great. Each word entry gives you its part of speech, its year of first use (some amazing trivia here!), definitions (of course), some usage examples, synonyms, and etymology. Most words also have a spoken pronunciation, but no written pronunciation key. I'm very disappointed that the speech is computer-generated speech, not human-recorded speech. Last year when I was traveling in Asia I saw electronic dictionaries in the $100 range with real human speech. The quality was just amazing. I really wish Franklin had used human speech, or at least provided written pronunciation keys to supplement the poor-sounding computer voice.

You can view the word screen in three different sizes: small (11 lines), medium (8 lines), or large (6 lines). Large size is by far the best-looking, not only because the font is big, but it's also smooth. The other two sizes look too jagged, and there's often a shadow behind the text that makes reading difficult. There is *no* backlight on this thing, making it impossible to use in the dark.

Unfortunately, I've found a few words -- by no means tricky words or foreign ones -- that are not in this dictionary but I can find on the free Encarta online dictionary (...). This is very disappointing, making me suspicious of the vocabulary capacity of this product.

One more thing that disappoints me: the overall build quality of the product is rather poor. Assembled in Malaysia, it just feels cheap, period. It's made of gray plastic that ages quickly, and the thumbboard buttons are the worst I've ever used. (I've used countless PDA thumbboards as well as those in the Treo, Sidekick, Blackberry, etc.) The buttons are hard tactilely and not very responsive. The flip cover is a total joke and can come off very easily. I'm very disappointed in the quality of this product that cost me 90 bucks.

On the plus side, this Franklin uses 2 easy-to-find-and-cheap AAA batteries. I can't comment on the battery life yet since I just got this a couple days ago. But given it doesn't have backlight, I imagine it should last a few weeks of moderate use.

Because I did not check out other electronic dictionaries, like those from Casio or Sharp, I cannot do a comparative review. Let me just say that I regret not having done more homework before I made the purchase. I really should have compare-shopped. I took a blind trust in the Franklin name and, frankly, I'm rather disappointed. For close to $100, I expected more in terms of quality and dictionary capacity. (I personally don't care for its bell-and-whistle features.)