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Given that the failure of my Franklin SCD-1870 occurred shortly beyond its one-year warranty period, this experience leaves a nasty memory of a relatively expensive Franklin product. My particular dictionary was purchased new but it remained fully functional for only fifteen months, after which, without ANY abuse whatsoever during ownership of the product, the ENTER key and up/down scroll keys failed to be recognized, rendering the unit useless except to read the FIRST PART of a definition by pressing the DICT or THES key on the unit's tool bar. As a replacement, I purchased a Sharp PW-E550, which seems to be overall a product that is superior in almost all aspects to the Franklin SCD-1870, even notwithstanding no spoken pronunciation for the Sharp replacement. This dictionary is mediocre at best and a bitter disappointment for endurance of product. Major shortcomings are: non-retention of the last word used -- i.e., a word entered by user is not retained in the lookup window after the unit is powered off unless a word is deliberately saved by user in the unit's word list, which itself requires a rather tedious means for maintenance; the spoken pronunciation of a word does not sound natural -- i.e., the digitally-generated voice has a rather unpleasant machine-like quality to it -- therefore the definition should be accompanied by a pronunciation guide/key; the unit's physical keys are not user-friendly for larger fingers -- i.e., adjacent keys are too easily engaged, resulting in an erroneous entry and/or an inconvenient interference.
It has very good learning tools to help you expand your vocabulary. Excellent product. I love it.worth the money. The "speak" tool has helped me fix words I had mispronounced my whole life. I have used this dictionary for almost five years now. It is easy to use, informative, and has withstood being dropped countless times.
As others have noted both the LCD and the speech are clear. It comes with a lot more than a mere dictionary, like eBooks, but I use it primarily as a dictionary. I have had The Franklin model SCD-1870 for several years now. Vocabulary capacity is more than enough. I nominate this product as the best product of the first decade of the 21st century. I'm so grateful and happy with it I'm compelled to say a few words about it.Two AAA batteries I put in several years ago and it still works. And I use the dictionary pretty much every day.
The asterisk and question mark function helps out a lot though if you are not sure how a word is spelled. I spent that night and the next day looking up every single word I could think of, even the ones I was familiar with. The games serve their purpose and I don't have a problem reading the text. I loved pronouncing the difficult words and the batteries that came with the dictionary lasted for 18 months before the computer told be it was on low battery, and this was after using the device nearly every single day.
I'll never forget now the day I received my electronic dictionary. This is highly recommended and it is definitely one of those products that makes me wonder how I ever went without it. This works pretty quickly if you are typing in a word that the computer matches identically, but you have to wait a bit if you type in a word that is spelled incorrectly. It has changed my life.
I love saving words in the Word List, although sometimes the list is erased if you leave the device out in an extreme temperature, so be careful and make back-ups. I need it by my side at all times now. My mother bought me the Franklin SCD-1870 Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and I was in awe of this handheld device which looked like a little notepad but functioned like a computer. I would link myself from word to word and started building up my word list and looking up new words and studying the SAT Word List.
It has great word games as well, and the pronunciation is fairly comprehensible. My gf's still works, but her wordlist deletes once she turns the power off.For the price asked, the product is made extremely cheaply. I've seen less expensive dictionaries look up words AS you type, meaning that if you type "gramm," the word "grammatical" and other similarly spelled words would come up, thus saving you time.I gave the product two stars instead of one b/c it did have useful features (it's just a matter of those features working). The dictionary has a "cheap" feeling when you pick it up, and it is somewhat difficult to type, since the letters are so small.
This review pertains to Model SCD-1870A, ISBN: 159074174.Please do not waste your money on this product. But again, for the money paid, the product is too poorly constructed to receive, in my opinion, anything above 2 stars. The dictionary is very powerful--I read a lot of philosophy & scholarly works and have not found a word Franklin could not define. My girlfriend and I bought two of these dictionaries together, through an online vendor, and both had defects.At first my saved wordlist would delete periodically (which is frustrating when you have saved around 30 new words and are trying to expand your vocabulary).
On average, it takes the dictionary about 1.5-2 seconds to find a word once you type it and hit enter. My sister has a dictionary made by Sharp (http://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Electronics-PW-E550-Electronic-Dictionary/dp/B00028DM96/ref=pd_cp_e_0.pf_rd_p=250314601&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0000A8VNU&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=146VZ2PJ1K0NRC9Q68P3), and for looking up words it is much better, and has a more durable feel to it. Then my dictionary simply stopped working, after around 4 months of use. You'd expect a more durable plastic--one that could withstand a small drop.
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