WeDict Pro – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: Hongtao Guo
Version #: 1.1
Date Released: 2008-08-08
Developer:
Price: 5.99
User Rating:
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Last week Daniel wrote about his fondness for the Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook. What he did not mention is that he already knows three langages. Thus this will be his fourth. And I struggle enough with the two I know!)
It got me thinking about a good friend of mine who now does a good deal of business in China. As a result, he is there a few times a year. During each trip he usually hires a translator but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt him to learn a bit of Chinese. I downloaded weDict to see if it might be worth recommending to him.
weDict was originally a native iPhone dictionary on Installer for pre-iPhone 2.0 jailbroken phones. It offers user selectable dictionaries. It ships with WordNet 2.0 which includes 149,000 entries and an English-Chinese dictionary of 51,000 entries pre-loaded. Additional dictionaries are appaently available on the StarDict website.
As an English dictionary it is quite nice. It is easy to use, the font size is adjustable, and it offers usage examples of the words you look up.
There are, however, a number of major flaws.
First, in order to change the font or choose which dicitonaries to include you need to go to the Options button on the lower left and change the slidr controlling the font. Then you need to EXIT the app and restart it to have the change take effect. Major bummer.
Second, the words pronunciations are only available for English words currently which defeats the purpose of getting it for a trip to China.
Third, I have yet to be able to figure out how the process of downloading and adding additional dictionaries works. This is something that was apparently much easier on the jailbreak version of the app.
In all it is useful as an English dictionary but until those three issues get fixed I can’t recommend it.
Quick Take
Value: Low
Would I Buy Again: Not in its current form
Learning Curve: Using dictionary- low. Adding dictionaries- HIGH
Who is it for: Pople who need and English only dictionary or people who know English and Chinese and need a dictionary for both.
What I like: The idea of a dicitonary to which you can add other dictionaries
What I Don’t: Have to exit the app to change font, can’t figure out how to download new dicitonaries. I have no doubt it can be done but if I have to struggle to figure it out I am less included to use or recommend the app.
Final Statement: Has great potential. In the current for however, I do not recommend it.
The pro version is able to add more dictionaries by downloading from internet.
Key Features:
-Adding new dictionaries;
-Adjustable for dictionary order;
-Tap on any word to search;
-New layout for word definition;
-Export bookmarked words to html file by e-mail; O U R T A K E . . .
