App (engine):PocketDict 1.2BDicty engine version 5.0/5.5MSDictPocketLingo MAX English DictionaryGMPSoft ReferenceToGo engine version 3.51 AcroDesignMDict 2.1.3SlovoEd 2005 Revision 5 and/or 9
Database(s available)OPTED English only); Encarta (lite) English (+ Eng-to-Spanish)A lot, mostly free ones; see Memoware.Several Oxford titles (Pocket 9th, Concise 11th, Medical, three German dictionaries, Business, Idioms etc,) and two Cambridge titles (Advanced Learner's Dictionary (CALD) and Dictionary of American English)American Heritage 4thOxford (Pocket 9th, Concise 11th), Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Webster's American Family Dictionary, Putnam's Word BookWebster's New WorldWordnet V2.0, OPTED and some other freeMerriam-Webster Collegiate, 11th ed
PriceFree The engine is freely downloadable (5.0 for example here; 5.5 here)From $9.99 (mostly mini-dictionaries) to $39.99 (the largest ones)$39.95POED: $29.99 ($20.00 until August, 31st); COED/ CALD2: $28.00; WAFD: $24.00; PWB: $7.50$27.95Free$39.95 with the 10 000-word Speech Pack; $29.95 without
Trial restrictions?n/a (free)Only words starting with A and B are listed with dictionary databases coming as trial30 day; no other restrictionsA-E words onlyA 'Wait' dialog at startup with always-increasing waiting with most dictionaries; with Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, only letter 'A' is accessible (that is, the trial of this dictionary database is entirely useless)n/tn/a (free)More and more nagging messages as you use the dictionary, independent of the time passed
Requirements----Note that the app uses its own installer; it's only the viewer app that is CAB-based. The database PDB files (with the Oxford dictionary, poed_dict.pdb) can't just be manually copied to the PDA: the custom installer creates additional files in \My Documents\GMPSoft to point to the new location. That is, you must either copy these files too when (re)deploying the dictionary database or use the desktop-based custom installer.---
Memory?anywhereanywhereOnly msdict_ctxm.dll (13k) in RAM, everything else anywhere-Puts about 1M fonts to \Program Files\ GMPSoft\Fonts. These can be easily relocated by accordingly modifying HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ GMP\ Common\ fontspath to point to the new location.-Everything (480k engine + database files) can be stored on a cardAbout 800k in \Program Files\SlovoEd, the entire directory can be safely relocated (even the resident "Word of the Day" will work after this!) to a storage card
Compatibility: Standard (SE) VGA?+++Pixel doubling; forcing \HLCSoft\PocketLingo\ PocketLingo2.exe messes up the GUI a bit and completely hides the previous/next definition icons, the Back button and the "My Word" checkbox. That is, if you want to easily go back to the list of the words, step to the previous/next word in the list or want to add the word to your study list, you should never use the forced VGA mode.Pixel doubling in SE. Forcing (\Program Files\GMPSoft) \depr\depr.exe hides the lowermost part of the GUI, meaning the three, highly useful Specific Search tabs (Error Tolerance Search / Phonetic Search / Crossword Search) will also be hidden and can't be accessed/activated in any way. This is a big pain in the back, as the three different, additional search modes are really nice and useful.+++
WM2003SE PL720, in True VGA mode+ +; only the two command icons are misshaped in "Add note" mode+ +. The only problem with native VGA mode is that the previous/next definition arrow icons will be almost completely hidden behind the "Back" button and will be, therefore, far harder to click. Fortunately, the D-pad up/down can still be used (on most devices - it didn't work on my PL720) to switch words.++ +-
WM5 QVGA HTC Wizard, in Landscape mode++++++++
WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v A12++++++++
Example of 'Charm'OPTED / Encarta"Charm" with English Gold (and "good")1 2; in True VGA 1 2+1 2Here1 2
Additional features: Easy to further search in the answer text?- (not even highlight is possible)+ (Word or expression must be highlighted by hand (unfortunately, double-clicking a word doesn't work with the 5.5 engine, only with the old 5.0) and, then, the icon clicked)+ (doble-click a word: first click copies the word to the input field, second initiates the search)- impossible to copy anything from the description in WM5, only under pre-WM5!+ clicking a word in the description will take you there at once+ (word must be highlighted and the "Go to Selected" button clicked)Word must be manually selected, copied to the clipboard and pasted back (these two functionalities with the two icons to the right of the word input field) to the word search field+ (Double-clicking a word auto-invokes lookup; highlighting some text and then, just tapping it results in the same)
Lookup history?+ (not through restarts; freely selectable in drop-down input list)+; remembers it; anything can be chosen+ (remembers through restarts; freely selectable in scrollable drop-down input list; also navigable with the two Arrow icons)+ (remembers) + (remembered)+ (remembers)(meant to have (see this and this) but I've never managed to make it work)+ (remembered and freely browsable)
Favorites?---To a certain degree ("My Words", while primarily meant for study quizzes, can also be used to list your favorite words)+ ("Bookmarks" here) It's edited and added exactly the same way as user notes. The same applies about categories: it allows for categories (not as good as Lexisgoo though - no nesting and/or displaying favorites / bookmarks from the last X days).+ (exactly as with the PocketLingo engine: if you add a word (by clicking the "Add to vocab." button) to your vocabulary list, later, by going to Goto / Vocabulary, you can list them and get their definition. It's here that you can also start a quiz from (see "Quiz" button)--
User notes?-+ (adding; it is listed at the end of the given article. There is no central lookup list of user-added notes, unlike with Lexisgoo)+ (adding (Menu (in pre-WM5, Options) /Note)). Added notes are not shown, however, in any way in the word list / in the description. By explicitly going to Menu (in pre-WM5, Options) /Note, you'll be shown it.-DEPR/ View / Edit Note creates/edits them for a given entry; DEPR/ View / Notes lists and manages them; allows for creating note categories, in which it's even better than Lexigoo (the latter doesn't let this possible, only with the tree structure of Favorites). Added notes aren't displayed at the end of the descriptions, the list of the keywords doesn't show and the "Add note" icon, , doesn't change when there are added notes for a given entry. This is certainly a drawback compared to, say, Lexisgoo, which, when a note is previously added to an entry, highlights the Note icon.---
Speech synthesis?-------Pre-recorded voice of native English speakers (of really excellent quality - in this respect, it's much better than anything else) can be purchased with 5/ 10 / 20 000 words. It's only capable of spelling individual words, unlike Flite and its "read the entire selection" capability.
English grammar tutorial built-in? -----, but it contains a lot of really useful tables like nationality, animals, prehistoric animals, periodical table, activity, gases, prehistoric periods, herbs, instruments with keyboard, animal lair types, metals, nuts, organs etc. Really instructive!---
User-added, searchable, new database records as in, say, SlovoEd 2005?------- (on the desktop, however, you can easily create your own databases)By far the best. Give the new record a searchable name (here, "mynewrecord") and create the description. During this, you can use any font style / type / color (see the Format menu; an example here).

The newly added record will be stored in the user dictionary (which will be automatically created if you haven't ever added any record) and, depending on whether you let the system to access it parallelly with the "official" dictionary databases, searchable (this is the default).
Dynamic scrolling with, preferably, hiding all the entries that are surely not looked for?+ / ++ / - + / -+ / -+ / -. Note that, unlike all other apps, it lists words using the "Smart Word List" searching / scrolling mode (instead of the standard "Alphabetical Word List" used by other apps), which also displays words that contain the sought-for word inside them. This is why for example here there is 'relative atomic mass' among the keywords starting with 'atom'.+ / -+ / -+ (a bit slower than other, dynamically scrolling apps) / -
Multiple dictionary database support: Does it exist?+++++-++
Easy-to-create, well-documented and supported custom databases?-----(n/a)+-
Looking up the description of a word from more than one databases as easily as possible?Tolerably simple: the entered word remains in the text input field and the list also auto-scrolls to there after the dictionary switch; that is, this only takes three clicks (two to change the dictionary and one to get the description of the uppermost word)Even more complicated than with MDict (you must traverse the focus to another word and, then, back, after switching the database)While it always ends up at the top of the word list of the new dictionary after a dictionary switch, the word can be easily found in the drop-down list of the input text field history+ (1 2 - that is, you only need to switch the dictionary in the database drop-down list. Note that this only works "upwards" in the dictionary list, not downwards.)+ (just go down the word list)(n/a)Possible, but not as easy as with SlovoEd: after switching the current dictionary in Library, the searched-for word remains in the text input field, but you must manually press/click Enter for the search to be conducted again.+ (the easiest, best approach)
Are the words of all accessible databases included in the search list?--- (Menu (in pre-WM5, Options) /Search Dictionaries doesn't seem to do anything)-+ (see the icons showing which dictionary a keyword belongs to in front of each keyword)/ Note that it even allows cross-references: for example, if you use a Bible dictionary, then, you can easily look up the relevant, references section in a (compatible) Bible database like in this screenshot. It's a real killer feature of this title!(n/a)-+ (unique in this respect)
Search: Best match search support? (Wildcard searches (AKA puzzle helpers)?)--+ (note that, then, you must use the icon, not the default search ( )!)-+ Crossword Search; search for 'h??r'--+
Phonetic searches?----+ Phonetic Search; result of 'hier'---
Approximate match? Type (intelligent typo-checker / first match)?-- (upon trying to find Aprove from a separate app, it didn't even scroll to the first few matching characters - it just stays on the definition of the previously looked-up word (here, 'nice')-- + Error Tolerance Search; results of 'aprove' and 'propably'---
Anagrams; tested with 'listen'--------
Full text search (all occurrences of a given word)?--------
Communication with outside world: icon and/or other means (for example, monitoring the clipboard)? If not, other means of quick, preferably Clipboard-based quick paste upon activation?-; while system-level button redefining works, no Paste capabilities to the Search input field+ (icon used (placed to the left of the leftmost icon on the taskbar; can't be relocated); copy to the clipboard must be manually done and, then, "Translate Clipboard" invoked)-; system-level button redefining + Paste to the Search input field work- (manual pasting to the text input field is only possible upon the first start; upon subsequent pastes, the old contents will be pasted to the field. Absolutely useless.)-; system-level button redefining + Paste to the Search input field work- (Ctl - V works for pasting though)+ Has a word picker icon, , (relocatable anywhere on the taskbar), which works exactly the same way as with Lexisgoo and WordBook - that is, you don't need to manually copy the highlighted text to the clipboard before tapping it. The results are presented in a window; if non-existing words are searched for (for example, "aprove"), the (alphabet-wise) closest matching word is displayed. You can easily switch to the full screen mode of the lookup by double-tapping the word picker icon to make more searches or to look up the definition of the word in other dictionaries - this is also very good news.There is no icon (the only icon it uses is solely for the "Word of the Day" functionality). It, however,

1. overrides the system-wide "copy to clipboard" functionality in a way that it notices double-copies of the same content to the clipboard. Then, it is invoked (in both a separate window and full screen mode, configurably). All this, compared to the "highlight some text and click the icon" solution implemented by Lexisgoo and Wordbook, requires copying to the clipboard (two times).

2. The engine also supports adding the "Translate" menu item to the highlight context menus in some (but definitely not all!) applications; for example, to PIE/IEM. Then, you won't need to double-copy anything to the clipboard.

3. The traditional invoke-by-button-and-auto-paste-the-contents-of-clipboard-to-the-input-field also works here (the button is configurable from inside SlovoEd)
Copy/paste: Pasting into the input field?- (!)- in 5.5, + in 5.0+ (Ctl-V)- (see above)+ (Ctl-V)+ (Ctl - V)+ (only with the Paste icon on the right of the word input field)+ (both Edit icon / Paste and Ctl-V)
Copy definition (or parts of it) to clipboard?+ (rightmost Copy icon on task bar; copies everything from the description. No selective copy.)+ (Edit/ Copy)- (!)+ under operating systems prior to WM5; - under WM5-. It's only individual words that can be copied, after clicking them (copying to the input field); they, then, can be copied with Ctl-C-+ (only with the Copy icon on the right of the word input field)+
Study support: Study?---It has a word study list that must be manually populated (there are no auto/random population capabilities) by clicking the My Word checkbox of each word you want to be included in the list. Studying is both supported by a flashcard quiz (1 2) and a complete list of the words you've selected for studying. From the latter list, you can delete words and modify preferences ("how many days should it be displayed") -Pretty good (offers much more than the standard "study list" and "flashcard" capabilities of most other dictionary engines): With words manually (no auto/random addition is possible!) added to the vocabulary list, you can play flash cards (result after clicking Next), Multiple Choice and Synonym Match.

There is another game, Word Search, accessible via Goto / Word Search with requestable list of words and self-solving capabilities		-Not in the way (a given list of (random) new words for each day) of WordBook / Lexisgoo. There is a Word of the Day (also accessible (note that, under WM5, the buttons are mostly hidden by the softkeys. Under previous OS'es, this isn't a problem - a WM2003SE example here) by clicking the resident SlovoEd icon on the task bar); also, you can add any word to the collection of your flash cards. Later, you can initiate a flash card quiz (1 2)
Explicit random word display?-------- (only the Word of the Day - that is, only one random word a day and you can't force SlovoEd to change it to something else in the Word of the Day settings dialog)
English pronunciation?-- (with English Gold)+ with English-only dictionaries, non-IPA (also see "!Pronunciation system" at the start of the word list!); with German dictionaries, IPA-like with some differences (also see this)+ non-IPA (pron. key included)-+ non-IPA (also see this)-+, non-IPA
Syllabification?-- (with English Gold)- + -- -+