Another Palm OS vs. Pocket PC thread

[curwenx]

Hi,

I'm a long time Palm OS user, and I've been using Plecodict for my old OS 4 based Sony Clie. That Clie has recently died completely, so I'm in the market for a new device.

I study both Chinese and Japanese, and seeing that Plecodict is available for both PPC and Palm OS, I will make my choice of platform based on what Japanese products are available.

For Palm, I've been using a freeware dictionary (don't remember the name) that's quite impressive. However, it is limited to the free EDICT project, and I really want commercial-quality dictionaries (for instance Kenkyusha). I've tried products from Lingvosoft and Ectaco, but have not been impressed.

Any tips for good English-Japanese-English dictionaries for either platform? Chinese-Japanese would also be a nice bonus.

Also, what is the status on a Chinese-Chinese dictionary for Plecodict? Any plans for a bigger English-Chinese?

Finally, regardless of whether I end up with PPC or Palm OS, I will probably buy the device in Japan. Will a Japanese OS cause any problems?

PS: The dictionary I'm using now is: http://www.casio.com.cn/dic/chanpin2.html I wrote a review for it a while back at: http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?t=5076

 

[mikelove]

I don't really know much about Japanese products for Pocket PC (or for Palm beyond the EDICT-based ones) - there's a pretty good list of them at http://www.pocketpcjapan.com/ (the FAQ section) which includes a couple that seem to be based on high-quality commercial databases. Given the Japanese fondness for gadgets, I imagine you'll have better luck searching for products from Japanese companies than American ones.

As for a Chinese-Chinese and a larger English-Chinese, we're in active licensing discussions for both of those. I'm very much hoping there'll be an announcement for at least one of them in January, though the earliest the Chinese-Chinese might be available is March, and the English-Chinese wouldn't be ready until summer.

I don't know of any reason you'd have problems with a Japanese OS - Pocket PC is Unicode and hence the OS doesn't really matter, and on Palm we have our own text engine and it doesn't really matter what the OS is using.

 

[curwenx]

The Kenkyusha products look very impressive, but most likely don't contain any form of Kanji lookup. Thus, I'd have to get a Kanji dictionary as a separate application, and I'm sure it'll end up being a pain to use.

If only plecodict came out in a Japanese version :wink:

 

[mikelove]

Unfortunately, so many of the good Japanese dictionaries appear to be tied up in exclusive licenses (or buried beneath layers of Japanese corporate xenophobia) that any PlecoDict Japanese edition would likely be confined to EDICT. If we expand to any other languages in a serious way they'll likely be French/Spanish/German, since it's actually possible for a small American company to license a good dictionary in those languages.