Help me Select a Device for Pleco

[欧阳海]

I've been using Pleco almost two years on three different phones, all WM-running clunkers.

The current phone I'm using--Samsung Omnia on Verizon--is awfully slow and I will glad to rid myself of it when my contract expires next month. I am interested in acquiring a new device for running Pleco. I am on a pretty tight budget. Here are my main criteria:

1. Will be functional in both China and the US.
2. Will run Pleco (and other applications), significantly faster than the molasses-like Samsung Omnia.
3. Will have efficient multi-tasking (unlike Samsung Omnia) for the following tasks: Pleco-ing, music, phone/SMS, calendar/clock.

Other applications and data services are welcome but not necessary. They are unwelcome if they will a )use up my SIM credits b)slow my phone down to speeds approximating those of the tortoiselike Omnia.

I am considering an unlocked iPhone 2G running iOS 3. How does that sound?

 

[bunny87]

We sound like we're in a similar boat. Let me know what you end up doing.

I'm not in any rush though, ever since the news of the android pleco. I want an android powerhouse to have pleco run effortlessly and smoothly.

 

[mikelove]

I am considering an unlocked iPhone 2G running iOS 3. How does that sound?

That should work OK, but honestly the 3GS is a better bet - costs more, but a HUGE speed boost and the camera's good enough for OCR. And unlike the 4, they take standard SIM cards and are pretty widely available unlocked - I have one myself that I use when traveling outside the US.

I'm not in any rush though, ever since the news of the android pleco. I want an android powerhouse to have pleco run effortlessly and smoothly.

Well the new high-end ones should do a pretty good job, but I don't know if we'll ever get it quite as smooth as the iPhone version - for all of the optimizations Google has made, they still can't match the performance of all-native code. But of course "smooth" is a relative term and what people considered smooth and fast a few years ago would probably seem achingly slow to a current smartphone user. Still I'm certainly looking forward to seeing Pleco running on a dual-core Android phone (strangely enough we still haven't gotten one in here).

 

[欧阳海]

honestly the 3GS is a better bet - costs more, but a HUGE speed boost and the camera's good enough for OCR

As best I can tell, a second hand 3GS would cost me an extra $400 vis-a-vis the 2G. I don't need OCR.

Mike, have you tried running Pleco on the 2G? Is it really that slow?

 

[欧阳海]

I ended up buying a second hand Iphone 2G. I will try to remember to report my experiences after a month or so.

EDIT: Make that "after one day". The only Apple product I ever used before this was the IPod Shuffle, so I'm not at all experienced with the IPod touch/IPhone/IPad generation. Yet after less than one full day of use, it is overwhelmingly obvious that Pleco should not be run on anything other than these products. The difference is massive. Basically every feature that I used on Win Mobile is dramatically better, from handwriting input to pop-up definitions.

Also, the phone itself is clearly superior to those clunky Samsung and HTC devices, despite the IPhone predating many of them. I know this is not news to most of you.

 

[mikelove]

EDIT: Make that "after one day". The only Apple product I ever used before this was the IPod Shuffle, so I'm not at all experienced with the IPod touch/IPhone/IPad generation. Yet after less than one full day of use, it is overwhelmingly obvious that Pleco should not be run on anything other than these products. The difference is massive. Basically every feature that I used on Win Mobile is dramatically better, from handwriting input to pop-up definitions.

Thank you! Very happy that you feel that way - we've had a number of WM users turn out to be disappointed with the iOS version (they don't like a lot of the UI changes). And sorry I didn't reply earlier... it's not that I'd consider the 2G slow - Pleco for iOS was originally designed / optimized on one, the processor is the same as the 3G and I carried one of those until last summer - but it's less future-proof (in terms of OS upgrades) than the 3GS and it doesn't support OCR.