Useful to have a keyboard?

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

I'm new and have not bought Pleco yet.

I'm shopping for a PDA and was wondering if having a keyboard will be useful for using Pleco? I know the iPaq has a model with built in keyboard kind of like the Treos.

Leena

 

[mikelove]

That depends on how often you think you'll be searching in English or Pinyin. I for one find the keyboard very useful on my Treo 650, mainly because it helps with Pinyin (and mixed Pinyin/character) searches, but if you're mostly buying PlecoDict as a tool for looking up unknown characters then you might not get that much use out of a keyboard.

And if you expect to be switching frequently between the two input methods, you might prefer a Pocket PC or Palm with an onscreen keyboard (like the Palm TX, or any Pocket PC with a rectangular (not square) screen) - with those, you use the stylus to tap on letters, and while they're not quite as fast as a thumb-based keyboard, they make up for it by not requiring you to move your hands around when you switch between using the keyboard and the stylus. Thumbboards are most useful when you're using them to type several words at a time, as in an e-mail or a text message, but they're less useful when you're just entering a few letters.

 

[sui.generis]

I've found the onscreen keyboard that comes with TX (also LD) to be more than enough for pinyin lookup in Pleco. For my use, the onscreen keyboard is plenty. I assume that most ppc models have the same thing.

 

[MALAILI]

I HAVE THE NEW T-MOBILE MDA WHICH HAS A SLIDE OUT KEYBOARD AND I FIND IT NICE.

IN JUST A DAY OF USING THE STYLUS, I CAN INPUT PINYIN AND ENGLISH QUITE WELL.

AS I SAW SOMEONE ELSE SAY, INPUTTING PINYIN ONLY REQUIRES A FEW LETTERS, SO THE KEYBOARD IS NOT ALL THAT MUCH OF A BENEFIT.

THE UNIT ITSELF IS GREAT, BUT THE MEMORY IS QUITE SMALL, ONLY 47 MB, PLECO USED ABOUT 37 MB, SO I ONLY HAVE 6 MB LEFT.

(THERE ARE A FEW MB BEING USED BY T-MOBILE AND MICROSOFT.)

OVERALL, IT IS A GOOD COMPACT UNIT.

 

[goulniky]

also see the discussion on this thread. I'm a keyboard afficionado, currently using a UX50, I just love the laptop-style, swivel screen form factor, but was thinking of switching to the Qtek 9600 / HTC TyTN...

Incidentally, since I had to re-install everything on my spare UX50 last week, I was able to load up both PlecoDict (ABK + NWP) and CJKOS on internal memory (within the 16 Mb PalmCard + 32 Mb Int.Media) - that's including hires, 48pt fonts but GB only, no BIG5 stuff with CJKOS, and I'm left with about 1Mb for other apps.

INPUTTING PINYIN ONLY REQUIRES A FEW LETTERS, SO THE KEYBOARD IS NOT ALL THAT MUCH OF A BENEFIT.

A matter of preference I guess, but I have a different view, for me the keyboard is essential. fada is quick, but jingzheng takes a little longer, and if you do a lot of pinyin search as Michael said... I use PlecoDict about half/half, half pinyin search (listening aid) and half onscreen recognition (reading aid).

 

[Andy]

When I was more of a beginner I would run into a lot of characters I didn't recognize when I was reading, a keyboard wouldn't have done me any good with radical lookup or character recognition. I have a palm T3 that has a really nice screen and works well in a classroom or at a desk. It's a lot more frequent now that I recognize characters by pinyin but need to check the dictionary for the meaning of the word, a keyboard is excellent for this, it's a lot quicker than pulling out a stylus and much more convenient to me. It seems as though I'm in the minority regarding this issue, though.

 

[goulniky]

hi, I have had a chance to try out both the QTEK 9000 and the newest QTEK aka HTC TyTN on which I am thumbtyping this post. Keyboard of the former is much nicer, full size, and the VGA screen almost as good as on a UMPC. Mike, i am wondering if Pleco will work on a VGA screen?
My other question is how do you get those WM5 devices to display Chinese fonts e.g. websites on European versions of the OS, i thouht they were supporting Unicode, must be missing sth but it doesnt seem to work....
thx/Yv