Customer Reviews: Read 111 more reviews...
 Comprehensive, intuitive and convenient November 15, 2004
Phyrephox (Los Gatos, Ca USA)
237 out of 243 found this review helpful
I had been thinking about buying an electronic dictionary since they first appeared on the market. I knew pretty much what I wanted in a device but until now, I've found them all wanting in some area that was important to me. This device is absolutely perfect for my needs. These are the attributes that I was looking for, in roughly most important to least important order:
It had to be easy and intuitive to use
It had to have a very comprehensive dictionary and thesaurus
It had to show (not speak) pronunciation
It had to be non-invasive (imagine using one of the speaking dictionaries in a classroom or library setting)
It had to be reasonably priced
The PW-E550 meets all of these requirements.
At the time I was considering the PW-E550 I was reading two books: "Being And Nothingness" by Sarte and "How To Be Alone" by Jonathan Franzen (as an aside, if you're not familiar with Jonathan Franzen I highly recommend checking him out). I decided to page through each book and write down a short list of words that I either did not know the meaning of, or was unclear of. I then took that list of words to my local bookstore, found the hardcopy version of "The New Oxford American Dictionary" and looked up my words. With the minor exception of "transphenomenal", I found all of my words in some form (with "transphenomenal" I was able to find "phenomenal", "phenomena" and "trans-").
To give you an idea of what I was looking for I unashamedly present my word list:
nihilates, transphenomenal, ontological, heterogeneity, facticity, thematized, interiorization, objectivation, vagaries, preponderant, exigencies, isolationism, milieu, preemption, multilateralism
When I received the PW-E550 the first thing I did was to recheck my word list. My experience was better than I expected. Not only did I find the same words and definitions, I didn't have to glance at the manual at all to figure out what to do. I just pressed the "DICT" button, typed my word and watched the list of words that matched my typing get smaller until my word (or a form of it) was displayed.
The screen has two zoom settings and the contrast makes the display easy to read. The entire unit could fit comfortably into a shirt pocket (both size and weight). The fact that it uses a single AAA battery (as a previous reviewer mentioned) is a real plus.
There was one feature that I did not think about until I started using the device - it would be nice if, when looking at a definition, I could look up any of the words in the definition without losing my place. That's when I picked up the manual and much to my delight I discovered the device can do this (they call it "Super Jump"). It's not as intuitive as the other features but once you've used it, it becomes obvious. Finally, the hardcopy version of the dictionary has pictures on some pages but the E550 does not. Again, not an issue for me.
I would like to comment on an earlier review where the author gave this unit a one star review. She complained that the PW-E550 is a dumbed-down version of the PW-E500. By dumbed-down, she meant it had fewer words than the E550. This is true. However, the PW-E500 uses the "Oxford English Dictionary" and its corresponding "New Oxford Thesaurus". That dictionary gives both English (as in England) and American definitions, likewise the thesaurus. This would be a personal choice. I don't need to see both "color" and "colour" in my dictionary but that's just me. To me it was like she was saying that she thinks a Jaguar is a better car than a Cadillac therefore a Cadillac is a lousy car. This is a great reference tool.
If you have any doubts about the contents of this unit, go look at the hardcopy versions. I am very impressed and absolutely delighted that I have such a simple yet comprehensive reference sitting on the arm of my chair as I read.
The best portable reference I've found so far March 28, 2006
J. Wang (Los Angeles, CA USA)
107 out of 108 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 coffeeshop?
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 bought this one, and actually bought the Seiko Concise Encyclopedia Britannica for a while before I returned that one. Here's a comparison between the two, and a little mention of the last one:
- Both 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 does provide examples of usage while the MW doesn't.
- 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 was 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 they included 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.
- 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 punched 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. The Sharp also has a memory feature, that goes back some forty or so of your last entries.
- 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.
- The Concise Encyclopedia that came 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. The Seiko I was really excited to check 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, I recommend anyone with a remote interest in having an English electronic dictionary to go with the Sharp. It's the best portable reference I've found so far.
Excellent product May 5, 2006
A Reader (CA, United States)
51 out of 52 found this review helpful
The Sharp PW-E550 is an excellent product. It is just slightly larger than a deck of cards when closed. It has two font sizes. The smaller one is perfectly readable for me and offers sufficient content on the screen. It performs amazingly well, very quick, and has so far had all the words I needed to look up.
As one person mentioned, spend a few minutes going through the manual as there are a couple of features that are not readily apparent but are very useful. The Super Jump feature being the most notable, which allows you to lookup the definition of a word within a definition.
The Sharp PW-E550 does everything I wanted it to do and more. A great buy.
 Why would anyone purchase this dumbed-down version? October 6, 2004
Lauren Adams
36 out of 55 found this review helpful
I cannot imagine why anyone would want this dumbed-down version of the PW-E500 which is being sold (I was informed by Sharp) only in the UK and Australia. I think that we Americans are being cheated. The 550 has only 2/3 of the vocabulary definitions and completely lacks the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
The PW-E500 has:
* Oxford English Dictionary (355,000 words, phrases, and definitions)
* New Oxford Thesaurus (600,000 synonyms & antonyms)
* Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (5th Edition) (20,000 quotations and 3,200 authors comprehensively indexed - Name, Keyword Search, Themes, etc)
* Crossword Solver (if you have, for example, A_i_on_, type ? into the blank spaces like so - A?i?on? - hit Enter and the options alimony and Arizona appear)
* Anagram Solver (type in "Listen" and inlets, silent, tinsel, enlist all appear. Type in "Bowel" and bowel below elbow appears - an anagrammatic sentence of anatomical correctness. Love that discovery!)
* History Key (keeps track of 30 items most recently accessed)
* Zoom Key (permits 2 text sizes, should you misplace your specs)
* Calculator (12-digit, fully functional, with memory calculation)
* Currency & Metric Converter functions
* Power (200 hours on one AAA battery)...
...and more
This model is far inferior to the E500. May 26, 2005
Ron Burgess (Chevy Chase, MD)
32 out of 53 found this review helpful
The E500 which is not sold in the USA has 355,000 definitions. The US model is a stripped down version and has 105,000 fewer words. I often can't find the word I am looking for in the American version, why they don't sell the better model here is a mystery to me.
If you don't mind settling for less words, this product is still better than any other in the electronic dictionary category, especially the Franklin series.
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