zire 31 or other lowend PDAs for Pleco

[XiKe]

sorry to inundate the board, but I just wanted to know about buying a low end pda like the Zire 31 to use with Pleco. Is the low res screen a big problem? Also, how annoying is the lack of a keyboard for pinyin input? Can I load an electronic facsimilie of a keyboard onto the zire (or does this feature come standard)? I am worried about struggling with the grafiti script as the main source of romanized input.

Any reccomendations besided the zire for a cheap pda to run Pleco?
thanks so much,
Xi Ke

 

[AJ]

Choices

Xi Ke:

If you haven't already viewed Mike's page on Which PDA to buy? you will want to look there.

You might also look at this forum thread where someone was looking last month on which to buy and ended up going with the Tungsten E2.

I think the low-resolution screen would be a deal breaker for me on the Zire31. If you have the budget for it, I would recommend going for the E2. If you go the low res route, you can still use the magnify feature of Pleco to make a closer examination of a character, but you may not want to have to do that all the time. Perhaps some others out there with low resolution screens can voice more their level of satisfaction / dissatisfaction.

As far as Pinyin input, both models would have the tap screen keyboard available. After some short usage, you may find that you prefer using Palm's Graffitti though. I find it much faster than using an onscreen keyboard, especially if you are going to add in tone numbers.

With regards to your second post, it is possible to have something shipped from the US, albeit with some risks. There is risk of it not arriving at all or being flagged for customs duty especially if it appears to be a new product. I don't know the specific market you mentioned, though others who are in BJ have recommended it.

 

[XiKe]

thanks, I realize now that a lot of my questions were repetitive- I apologize to the board for not doing better recon. Anyways, I got a used Tungsten E pretty cheap on ebay and am having it shipped here. lets hope it makes it to BJ?
As for Zhong Guan Cun, well its an experience to say the least, especially when your Mandarin is as poor as mine.
-Xike

 

[AJ]

Xike:

I think you'll be please with the T|E, at least you will appreciate the screen on it better than the Zire31. If you are going to run Pleco Basic, that should be all you need. If you want to run the Professional or Complete versions you will also want to pick up an SD card.

 

[lmcjipo]

sorry to inundate the board, but I just wanted to know about buying a low end pda like the Zire 31 to use with Pleco. Is the low res screen a big problem? Also, how annoying is the lack of a keyboard for pinyin input? Can I load an electronic facsimilie of a keyboard onto the zire (or does this feature come standard)? I am worried about struggling with the grafiti script as the main source of romanized input.

Any reccomendations besided the zire for a cheap pda to run Pleco?
thanks so much,
Xi Ke

I'm not familiar with the resolution of the Zire 31 but if your reference to "low res" is what Palm defines as "standard resolution" which is 160x160 for non-marketing people , it will work fine on it. However you will probably use PlecoDict's magnifying feature a lot.

I have a Treo 600 which has the 160x160 screen and quite a few characters are unrecognizable using the standard font size on a 160x160 screen because I'm not familiar with 99% of the Chinese characters.

However, my Mandarin tutor is able to distinguish/determine what is shown on my Treo 600 in terms of Chinese characters without having to rely on the magnifying feature. I basically show her the screen when I need her to check the definition and she is able to tell me if the Chinese characters that I'm looking at can actually be used correctly in my sentence.

The magnifying feature is great and it was the deciding reason why I purchased PlecoDict for my Treo 600.

 

[minnes]

I am worried about struggling with the grafiti script as the main source of romanized input.

Once you get used to the grafiti script, it becomes really easy. Using the built in keyboard is rather 麻烦, but there is always the option to get an exterior keyboard, and they are fairly cheap.
Good luck with it all.
Mike aka 尹明枫