I spent more than $1,000 US on various handheld translators, including two of Ectaco's latest and greatest. Nothing but buyer's remorse over all of it - completely impractical and all too often counter-intuitive.
Enter PlecoDict (which I had never even heard of until a month ago, despite exhaustive searches), and now I'm flying like I've never flown before. mikelove, your product is truly amazing. I can't go anywhere without it now, and my learning curve for Chinese has taken off exponentially.
The fact that it's equally useful and intuitive for expats as well as Chinese is mind-blowing as well. 5 seconds of training time, and Chinese people are snatching my PALM TX out of my hand, anxious to communicate with me. They want to tell me something, I pull out the translator, point to the HWR square and say "Hanzi...yi ge...", and they immediately start scribbling away. Then I point at the recognition icon/symbol, which they tap, and without further guidance, they select their character and immediately start excitedly scribbling another.
To translate, I do a backwards thing, since the lookup sees the left most character, or combination. I just swipe away the left most to reveal the next word, and in a few swipes I have the gist of what they're trying to tell me.
I could go on and on, but no less than a dozen other expats and Chinese (over just the past two weeks) are now scouring Wuxi and Shanghai in search of a PALM TX, so that they can have one too. That has never happened with anything else I bought...not even the ScanEye Penpower handheld text scanner, which is good, and has been practical, and has impressed more than a few. Even then, nothing has come even close to the "I AM ABSOLUTELY SOLD ON THIS, WHERE DO I GET ONE?" factor the way PlecoDict has.
One English speaking Italian expat friend of mine, who has lived in China for more than 12 years, and speaks, reads and writes fluent Mandarin, was shocked that he'd never even heard of Pleco. "I thought I had seen everything, but I have NEVER seen anything this good. Nothing. Not in all my years in China. This is amazing." And now he's desperate to find a PALM TX as well - and only for that application.
Wish I'd known about this sooner. I've been living and working in China since January 2007, and doing very well with my language studies, in spite of the garbage I've bought that was supposed to help me with Chinese. But when I think about what PlecoDict has done for me in just one month, I know now that I've been floundering.
I swear, I've never had a product snatched out of my hand so many times. There's one club I go to where I know I have to say goodbye to my PALM for a while, as half dozen others scribble away on it, excited to have a communication barrier down.
As an aside: I was asked a couple of times if there was a cracked version of PlecoDict. Both times I made the person feel very small. "Not with software like this. Not with this much put into it. For the impact it will have on you, just pay the price. And don't skimp. Pay the $119, unlock it all, and enjoy with peace of mind what no other product in the world can do for you."
Oh yes. Way to go, Pleco. That's my rant, that's my rave. I hope you take it to the bank in a big way, because of all developers out their, you are among the very most deserving; both of word of mouth advertising, and of the highest praise.
Enter PlecoDict (which I had never even heard of until a month ago, despite exhaustive searches), and now I'm flying like I've never flown before. mikelove, your product is truly amazing. I can't go anywhere without it now, and my learning curve for Chinese has taken off exponentially.
The fact that it's equally useful and intuitive for expats as well as Chinese is mind-blowing as well. 5 seconds of training time, and Chinese people are snatching my PALM TX out of my hand, anxious to communicate with me. They want to tell me something, I pull out the translator, point to the HWR square and say "Hanzi...yi ge...", and they immediately start scribbling away. Then I point at the recognition icon/symbol, which they tap, and without further guidance, they select their character and immediately start excitedly scribbling another.
To translate, I do a backwards thing, since the lookup sees the left most character, or combination. I just swipe away the left most to reveal the next word, and in a few swipes I have the gist of what they're trying to tell me.
I could go on and on, but no less than a dozen other expats and Chinese (over just the past two weeks) are now scouring Wuxi and Shanghai in search of a PALM TX, so that they can have one too. That has never happened with anything else I bought...not even the ScanEye Penpower handheld text scanner, which is good, and has been practical, and has impressed more than a few. Even then, nothing has come even close to the "I AM ABSOLUTELY SOLD ON THIS, WHERE DO I GET ONE?" factor the way PlecoDict has.
One English speaking Italian expat friend of mine, who has lived in China for more than 12 years, and speaks, reads and writes fluent Mandarin, was shocked that he'd never even heard of Pleco. "I thought I had seen everything, but I have NEVER seen anything this good. Nothing. Not in all my years in China. This is amazing." And now he's desperate to find a PALM TX as well - and only for that application.
Wish I'd known about this sooner. I've been living and working in China since January 2007, and doing very well with my language studies, in spite of the garbage I've bought that was supposed to help me with Chinese. But when I think about what PlecoDict has done for me in just one month, I know now that I've been floundering.
I swear, I've never had a product snatched out of my hand so many times. There's one club I go to where I know I have to say goodbye to my PALM for a while, as half dozen others scribble away on it, excited to have a communication barrier down.
As an aside: I was asked a couple of times if there was a cracked version of PlecoDict. Both times I made the person feel very small. "Not with software like this. Not with this much put into it. For the impact it will have on you, just pay the price. And don't skimp. Pay the $119, unlock it all, and enjoy with peace of mind what no other product in the world can do for you."
Oh yes. Way to go, Pleco. That's my rant, that's my rave. I hope you take it to the bank in a big way, because of all developers out their, you are among the very most deserving; both of word of mouth advertising, and of the highest praise.