Sharp Papyrus PW-N8000 electronic dictionary

We sort of thought handheld electronic dictionaries went out of style about the same time PDA memory capacities went above 128K, but apparently they're still big sellers in Japan, which is why Sharp is showing off the Papyrus PW-N8000, a dictionary that sports a 480x272 color display, an embedded version of the Encyclopedia Britannica and an SD card for viewing photos or loading additional data. We're sure someone's going to buy this, but we'll stick to doing research online — or slapping a card into our Treo if we really need something that works when we're offline (last time we checked, the Concise Britannica was about $30 on SD).

[Via I4U]

[Avaunt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Heh, the PWN 8000. Awesome.

[Lange @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Oh. Here at an european university, I can't count how many of dictionnaries ive seen.. all in the hands of asian people....

[south @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Well, as native English speakers you have the luxury of everyone in the business world trying to speak your language. The Japanese are often forced to sit in meetings with managers and colleagues who don't speak a word of Japanese, which makes this an essential tool. Trying to type quickly on a PDA is pretty awful, too.

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

This thing could be pretty cool depending on what's actually inside it and what kind of modification can be done to it...if this thing plays doom...it may become popular...

[Chuck @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

I see a lot of these in the hands of the Korean lids here in Seoul. As mentioned in the post, they are full of features. I see many of them with games built in. (much to the chagrin of many teachers!)

[Jaime @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Anyone who's ever tried to learn a complex script Asian language knows and appreciates the usefulness of this otherwise apparently unnecessary dictionaries. My Canon Wordtank has been a faithful companion to my Japanese reading, and I would've probably been unable to delve into Japanese literature without it.

[crysalis @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

how come you never say the price when you show stuff like this? come on, if you're talking about a gadget, make sure to mention the price! knowing the price of something is really important to me so I can think of it's reasonableness in relativity to other products. thank you

[tempusmaster @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

It's shown as 'Open Price' in the press release. Electronic dictionaries like this typically sell for between USD$100 to $350 in Japan. Casio, Sharp, and Seiko Instruments dominate the market.

Actually the term 'electronic dictionary' is misleading since the way that we use them in Japan is very different from the typical Western dictionary use.

[alter @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

That's interesting.
It'd be nice if tyou tell more about that asian way of dictionary usage.
In Russia we have the ECTACO http://www.ectaco.com/ electronic dictionaries, however PDA and smartphone dictionaries seem to intrude ectaco's market share. Some even use ordinary mobile phones and WAP-based dictionaries or J2ME Opera mini browser with convenient on-line dictionaries.

[OddManOut @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

"as native English speakers you have the luxury of everyone in the business world trying to speak your language..."

That's a definitely a big part of it. But from what I've seen since I've been in Japan, many Japanese people at the very least HAVE these even if they don't carry them all the time. 2 - 3 thousand Kanji is what you need to make sense of a newspaper, but since kanji came from a library of about 50,000 chinese characters...it's pretty common for Japanese people to use these simply when typing/writing something important to verify and/or recall various kanji. And you definitely see these in the libraries...looking up a word you don't know by radical can be an arduous task...

I've got a sharp zaurus C-1000 now (whose predecessors actually were the dominant electronic dictionaries in japan about 10 years ago...), which unfortunately lacks the big a$$ denchi-jisho of the C-3000. I've got a word tank already, but if THIS thing is reasonably priced I might pick it up...

[Rasmus @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

This looks really cool. I'm actually looking for a thing like this for when I go traveling, not only as a dictionary, but also for writing posts to my blog offline when I'm far away from internet cafes. If only I could get one with the ability to transfer the text to a pc.. any ideas ??

[ashmist @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

They are way popular here in HK too. They also speak the words as well, so you can learn the pronunciation.

My GF's has a nice feature that plays the first couple of bars from "deck the halls" that sounds like some sort of electronic underwater oboe every time it's turned on.

[blip @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

As someone else said if you've ever tried to learn japanese, chinese etc and owned one of these you'll know how much you come to love your electronic dictionary. I never leave home without it! If I didn't have one I'd have to carry jap-eng, eng-jap, kanji and classical japanese paper dictionaries! Nigh impossible since that's weigh in at 5-6kg... There are ones for pda but those are usually based on free dictionary files and aren't good enough. There were some good ones for PDA at www.airbitway.com (from kenkyuusha etc) but now all they seem to carry are the usual not-good-enough suspects... By the way does anyone know a electronic dictionary with a *good* kanji-dictionary? The one in the casio:s is just plain bad sometimes...

[clicclic @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

#10 - Rasmus: Have you checked out the Alphasmart Dana Wireless:

http://www3.alphasmart.com/

It's the closest thing to the old Tandy Model 100 that I've seen. Super light, super resiliant, and even comes with SD slots/wireless. It runs Palm OS 4.11 or something. Not the greatest OS but not that bad either.

[Rasmus @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

#14 - Thanks for that! That was kinda what I was looking for, although the price of the wireless one comes pretty close to a cheap laptop, so maybe I should just forget about xmas presents this year and get me an ibook ;)

[Chibi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

ditto to #6

[Chibi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

ditto to #6

[Ken Walker @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Hmm, can't seem to find that Concise Britanniaca on SD for $30 you refer to?

[ArC @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Huh. One of the reasons I didn't buy one on my recent trip to HK -- aside from the price and relative lack of need -- was that I figured the OS was in Chinese. Where can I get one for English-speakers wanting to learn Chinese or Japanese?

[Whitney @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Arc-

I haven't seen any made for any markets other than Asia. Outside of Asia they usually have to be imported. So most, if not all, will require Some knowledge of the language just to use it. Some of the Canons do come with an English manual though - that might be the closest you can get.

[Karan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

ArC, I know for a fact that there are Japanese models with english interfaces, but they carry a slight premium over the native ones (order of 5000 yen or so) and generally have more limited features. But as I say, they are out there and you should be able to get one, even for Chinese. If in Japan, take a walk through Akihabara.