Hi there,
on some advertisment I have seen a mobile phone which could obviously recognize Chinese characters once you handwrote them on the display. I know that this recognition is nothing new but I haven’t seen it in a mobile phone yet. Can you tell me which mobile phone that was and if it had a Chinese-English dictionary built in? For me that would be just about the perfect gadget! Which mobile phones support this kind of feature?
Bye, Sebastian
i own the MING
it’s a fantastic little piece
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_A1200
got mine at 17000 when it came out,they should be cheaper now…
Wow, that looks fantastic! Thanks for the infos! Did it come pre-installed with some chinese dictionary? Or did you have to find software yourself?
Bye, Sebastian
it has a fantastic chinese to english dictionary,
chinese signs reconitions
and once you have it,there are plenty of websites on the net for software upgrades
Sebastian, how seriously do you want to use your phone for learning Chinese? I’d say the best setup if you’re serious about it is still a Palm Treo with Plecodict (excellent dictionary software with handwritten character recognition, three available dictionary databases, and many other good things) and Supermemo (great flashcard vocabulary learning/review tool). My Treo’s an old model (Treo 600) and a bit bulky; however the new Treo 680 is much lighter and more compact.
Buying one here, it may or may not come with Chinese support. You may need to buy that separately yourself, but that’s very easy to set up. Most people use CJKOS, which doesn’t have built-in handwriting recognition. As I said, the Pleco dictionary software has handwriting recognition but only within the dictionary itself I think. If you want to use that function within the whole phone you can get other aftermarket software. But I think most people find using the other input methods easier. I use Pinyin and it works very well.
I have the ming’s cousin, the Motorola E6, also with very nice features, but if you need a dictionary, then I would venture that the above poster’s suggestion is more appropriate.
I have plecodict (also a horsesizedic), and I HIGHLY recommend it. So useful everywhere. So maybe plecodict with Treo would be the better option if your chinese is at a certain level.
I find the E6 useful now at this point, because now I know the meaning of most words, but I have to write either in pinyin (hanyu, bopo) or the character depending on the word.
I’ve been thinking of getting a Dopod, Glofiish or other Windows media PDA phone; can they be set up in a similar fashion?
You should check out the plecodict site for details. I believe it’s just www.plecodict.com or just google.
As far as I know, pleco only makes software for the PalmOS platform. That may have changed. Check the site.
If so, then the above machines will be incompatible, and the Palm Treo will be the solution.
The Treo is a good PDA, cheaper than the dopod I believe, but then again, it’s the windows v. other OS game.
But is there a way to run PalmOS software in Windows? I dunno. Google I guess. Maybe there’s a VirtualOS thingamijig.
[quote=“Poagao”]I’ve been thinking of getting a Dopod, Glofiish or other Windows media PDA phone; can they be set up in a similar fashion?[/quote]You can get Plecodict for Windows. You can get Supermemo for that as well, at least to Pocket PC 2003. I don’t really know about that OS but here’s the compatibility page:
ceti.pl/~tss/smce/
There are a couple of Windows-based Treos now. Could well be worth looking at, though I’m not sure whether they come with Chinese support here or what kinds of aftermarket support are available.
palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo750/
palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo700w/
Why are you interested in a Windows machine, by the way? Palm OS machines can also synchronise with Outlook, edit Office documents, etc.
Hello everybody,
after dablindfrog posted his answer and especially the picture of the Motorola Ming, I instantly fell in love with that gorgeous cellphone. I had to buy it… .
I have it since 3 days now and I have to say: I LOVE IT! You can get it new at NOVA for 9000 NTD and that’s a steal. It even comes with MSN pre-installed, so now you can even chat with your friends on the go…nice feature.
The Chinese character recognition works just fine. I might take a video later and show you guys. Very happy with my new gadget.
@joesax: I am sure that the Palm Treo with Plecodict would have been the better choice to really use the phone to study Chinese. But for me it was more important to have a stylish PDA phone where I can also check some words from time to time.
Bye, Sebastian
damn,i paid 17 large 1 year ago…pass me a bucket i’m gonna be sick 
Ah, that’s the thing with all those technical stuffs. Normally, I am an early adaptor too and have to pay double the price compared to one year later. But how could I wait for a whole year just to save some bugs but having to live without that great gadget for 1 year? So think like that: sure, you did pay 8000 NTD more than me, but you got it for 1 year already! That is just 666 NTD (beware, devil’s number!!) every month!
Bye, Sebastian
All I want is a 3.5G phone in roughly a phone shape with no antenna, with wifi, GPS, touchscreen/writing recognition and Hanyu Pinyin input for traditional characters. A QWERTY keyboard would be nice on a slider, plus a decent screen resolution higher than 320x240. Is there a Palm that has all that?
All I want is a 3.5G phone with wifi, GPS, touchscreen/writing recognition and Hanyu Pinyin input for traditional characters. A QWERTY keyboard would be nice on a slider, plus a decent screen resolution higher than 320x240. Is there a Palm that has all that?[/quote]
I understand your Chinese is pretty good. Maybe you don’t need Pleco dictionary. Maybe you just need hanyu pinyin and handwriting as an input.
My E6 does, I believe, what you listed minus wifi and qwerty. But with a touchscreen, a unit would not have qwerty to my knowledge. ie it would have a software qwerty, not a hardware one.
tell us what you end up getting, and give us some feedback. I’m interested as I appear to have the same concerns.
Sounds like an Asian iPhone might be the ticket.
All I want is a 3.5G phone with wifi, GPS, touchscreen/writing recognition and Hanyu Pinyin input for traditional characters. A QWERTY keyboard would be nice on a slider, plus a decent screen resolution higher than 320x240. Is there a Palm that has all that?[/quote]
I understand your Chinese is pretty good. Maybe you don’t need Pleco dictionary. Maybe you just need hanyu Pinyin and handwriting as an input.
My E6 does, I believe, what you listed minus wifi and qwerty. But with a touchscreen, a unit would not have qwerty to my knowledge. ie it would have a software qwerty, not a hardware one.
tell us what you end up getting, and give us some feedback. I’m interested as I appear to have the same concerns.
Sounds like an Asian iPhone might be the ticket.[/quote]Treos have touchscreens and hardware qwerty keyboards. The input/handwriting recognition stuff can all be done though it may well need some aftermarket software (I say may because some Treos purchased here come with some Chinese stuff preinstalled). I’m not sure about the 3.5G – I think at least one of the models I linked to might have that, but I didn’t read the information in detail. The sticking point might be the GPS. If I remember rightly, there isn’t any decent Taiwan GPS data for Palm OS. I might be wrong though.
Actually, I just remembered about the Treo having both touchscreen and hardware qwerty. It was my second choice. Go for it. then tell us about it. As I recall, if you have a Mac, the Treo was much easier to back up in MAC OS.
The iPhone doesn’t have 3.5G. Plus it won’t be here until 2008. The CHT 9000 has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard but no GPS, and the 9100 has GPS but no keyboard. Both have touchscreens. Thought my Chinese is sufficient for most things, I’d still like to have a dictionary because occasionally when reading I come across a character or phrase I don’t know and would like to look it up quickly and easily on my phone.
I use a PC, btw. I tried Mac for a while but it didn’t take.
Depending on your vocabulary level, I would message Pleco and ask them. They are really good with feedback. But judging from your posts, you may find the dictionary lacking. But ask them. They constantly do updaters. I know that they switched dictionaries in the past 2 years, and I have the old one. I found it useful, but lacking depth for my needs. I recall they were working with a better dictionary, and one where you can add entries. But I really appreciate the hand recognition in my palm plecodict. And that was in 2002. The software is much more advanced now. I like my E6, and as I understand, since it’s linux-based, there’s room for tinkering. If I had another choice, Treo.
[quote=“Poagao”]The iPhone doesn’t have 3.5G. Plus it won’t be here until 2008. The CHT 9000 has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard but no GPS, and the 9100 has GPS but no keyboard. Both have touchscreens. Thought my Chinese is sufficient for most things, I’d still like to have a dictionary because occasionally when reading I come across a character or phrase I don’t know and would like to look it up quickly and easily on my phone.
I use a PC, btw. I tried Mac for a while but it didn’t take.[/quote]I just checked through the specs for the Treos and none of them have 3.5G.
I might end up getting the Dopod, then. That is, when I have the extra cash for it.