Reader with the best dictionaries?

[Bal_]

Hi everyone, I've registered here because after browsing the forums for quite a few days, I still didn't manage to decide on what e-book reader I should buy. The most important thing is a good dictionary, not only monolingual English, but also German-English and Spanish-English would be good. Also, I don't really want to buy a reader without dedicated page turning buttons (like the Kindle Touch).
I've mostly been looking at the basic Kindle, the Nook ST (though I don't know anything about its dictionaries),the slightly more expensive Sony T1 (the T2 isn't available in my country yet) and maybe the Pocketbook Touch, though these latter two don't have as comfortably places buttons.
The ecosystem doesn't really matter to me, since neither Amazon, nor Barnes and Nobles offer services in my country, but we do have some DRM-free e-book stores.

What would you recommend me?

[Avwriter]

The Sony T-1 has an excellent selection of bilingual (two-way) dictionaries, including Spanish and German (as well as French, Italian and Dutch). The only downside it that there is no way to add new dictionaries additional dictionaries should you desire them. I believe that Kindle has an advantage in this regard, as you can purchase add dictionaries to their units.

[Nexutix]

Pocketbook has openly developed firmware. It also gives you a windows utility that can convert XDXF dictionaries to its ".dic" format. You simply copy this file to system/dictionaries folder after attaching to computer via USB and BAM! it is available there when you open your book.

As a result, you have almost all dictionaries free of cost and one of the users SirSteiner here on mobileread has created one from Wiktionary. I also have linked Wordnet 2.0 here.

[Bal_]

Thank you both for your replies! With this information, dictionary-wise the Pocketbook sounds by far the best, too bad that the placement of the dedicated page-turn buttons seems really uncomfortable. I take it there aren't any other readers out therre with the option of replacing their dictionaries in a similar way?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nexutix

Pocketbook has openly developed firmware. It also gives you a windows utility that can convert XDXF dictionaries to its ".dic" format. You simply copy this file to system/dictionaries folder after attaching to computer via USB and BAM! it is available there when you open your book.

As a result, you have almost all dictionaries free of cost and one of the users SirSteiner here on mobileread has created one from Wiktionary. I also have linked Wordnet 2.0 here.

I would respectfully disagree with you that this is "better" than decent commercial dictionaries on the Kindle, Sony, etc. Can you get "real" dictionaries like this? Oxford? Websters? Chambers? Collins?

[Billi]

You can buy "real" commercial dictionaries, too. If they are "decent" enough I can't judge, but you can see yourself:
https://store.obreey.com/eng/dictionaries/

It is a great feature that you can build and add your own dictionaries. One point is that - let's take the Sony as an example - the built-in dictionaries are all English focused and cover only a very small part of possible translation pairs. You don't have an English-Polish dictionary, you won't find a German-Portuguese dictionary and you can't add one if you would find one anywhere.
On the other side, many contributers have helped create the online dictionaries on this site: http://www.dict.cc/
And thanks to the open dictionary feature of the Pocketbooks we can use these dictionaries on our readers.

[HarryT]

Thanks for the link, Billi. That site does look useful, although (naturally enough) largely oriented towards the Russian-language user. I would still maintain that the Kindle has a wider (and better) range of dictionaries available for the English reader.

[Billi]

I wouldn't dare to contradict this.

[Rizla]

I think that the Sony 650 / T1 come with the most comprehensive set of dictionaries straight out-of-the-box. But they are geared to English (Eng-Fr, Fr-Eng, Eng-Ger, Ger-Eng, etc). Be careful of the T2 because Sony has reduced the number of out-of-the-box dictionaries depending on release location.

I believe the Kindle is better suited to adding custom commercial dictionaries than the Sony.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I think that the Sony 650 / T1 come with the most comprehensive set of dictionaries straight out-of-the-box. But they are geared to English (Eng-Fr, Fr-Eng, Eng-Ger, Ger-Eng, etc). Be careful of the T2 because Sony has reduced the number of out-of-the-box dictionaries depending on release location.

I believe the Kindle is better suited to adding custom commercial dictionaries than the Sony.

The Kindle comes as standard with dictionaries for US and British English, and has English translation dictionaries for German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. But, as you say, the Kindle store has a large number (many hundred) additional dictionaries for sale.

[Bal_]

I appreciate all the help I've got here, but I still haven't managed to decide. The most economical decision would obviously be the Kindle, but I'm not sure how tedious would using the dictionary be with the buttons. Is it really that much comfortable with a touch screen?
The fact that I can buy (high quality) dictionaries for the Kindle is pretty convincing.

[HarryT]

I have a Kindle Touch; the touch screen works extremely well, and the dictionary is very easy to use - just tap and hold a word on the screen to get a definition. Initially you get a short definition (3 or 4 lines) at the top or bottom of the screen. Tap that, and you get the full-page dictionary definition shown.

[Bal_]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have a Kindle Touch; the touch screen works extremely well, and the dictionary is very easy to use - just tap and hold a word on the screen to get a definition. Initially you get a short definition (3 or 4 lines) at the top or bottom of the screen. Tap that, and you get the full-page dictionary definition shown.

That does seem quite simple and if the Kindle Touch had dedicated page-turn buttons, I'd already have ordered one, but without them, I haven't really considered it. I don't understand how or why Amazon omitted those.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Bal_

That does seem quite simple and if the Kindle Touch had dedicated page-turn buttons, I'd already have ordered one, but without them, I haven't really considered it. I don't understand how or why Amazon omitted those.

I'm not sure why you don't understand it. The touch screen works extremely well. Consider that the iPad - the best selling tablet in the world - doesn't have buttons. For that matter, paper books manage pretty well with a touch interface, too!

I know some people have a preference for buttons, but there's a difference between not agreeing with a design decision and not understanding it, don't you think?

[Bal_]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not sure why you don't understand it. The touch screen works extremely well. Consider that the iPad - the best selling tablet in the world - doesn't have buttons. For that matter, paper books manage pretty well with a touch interface, too!

I know some people have a preference for buttons, but there's a difference between not agreeing with a design decision and not understanding it, don't you think?

I do understand that the touch screen works well. I just meant, that adding a few buttons would've meant that another group of people would've been interested in the product for a minimal amount of work/costs, therefore I don't understand what sense this particular decision made from Amazon's point of view.


Anyway, should someone else be reading this thread: does anyone have any long-term experience with using the dictionaries on the basic Kindle? Does it get annyoing?