Product Description

The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary is authorized by the makers of SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Games in the United States and Canada; and is endorsed by the National SCRABBLE Association for recreational and school use. Based on Merriam-Webster¿s The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition, this helpful handheld device will be invaluable to players at all levels who want to master the SCRABBLE game. It can solve disputes by instantly validating over 100,000 words and providing brief definitions. This patented device includes easy to use features which will enhance your SCRABBLE game playing skills.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1150 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Franklin Electronics
• Model: SCR-228
• Dimensions: .87" h x 5.12" w x 5.12" l, .75 pounds

Features

• Based on Merriam-Websters book, The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition (OSPD4)
• Features more than 100,000 two-to-eight letter words that are acceptable under the rules of the SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game
• Main dictionary entries include a brief definition, a part-of-speech label, and inflected forms for fast, easy word validation
• Phonetic Spell Correction
• Build words from your letter tiles

Customer Reviews

Bigger is Not Always Better (and Be Careful in Choosing)
Scrabble SCR-228 Players Dictionary
Franklin used to make a electronic Scrabble dictionary (based on the third edition of the official printed dictionary) that was the size of a credit card, easy to use and read, and could "travel" with little hassle due to its size. No more. They still make the model SCR-226 which is identical in appearance to the SCR-228 but also is based on the OLDER edition. Search the boxes in vain for the small print that explains the differences between 226 and 228. The SCR-228 is updated to the fourth edition. It's still easy to use, but the much larger letters, ironically, are a bit harder to read due to the huge display. Works fine, but why not continue to make a smaller, cheaper, just-as-good version?

More than the printed version
(The 5 star rating is based on the assumption that you're a Scrabble player; this product wouldn't be very useful to non-players.)

This is an electronic version of the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary 4th Edition (OSPD4), with some features that make it much more valuable than the print edition. It's more compact, and it is a lot faster to look up a disputed word than flipping through the book. It also has a few games to help sharpen your word skills and a "build" function that lets you enter your rack and get a list of all the words that can be formed from those letters, highest-scoring to lowest-scoring.

But what really makes this more valuable than the print version is a neat undocumented feature. As you may know, the OSPD4 says on the cover "Endorsed by the National Scrabble Association for recreational and school use." That's right, the "Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary" is not really official. For club and tournament play they use the "Official Tournament and Club Word List" (OTCWL or OWL2). This is because as of OSPD3 a lot of "offensive" words (cuss words, ethnic slurs) were removed from the dictionary. These words are still permitted in tournament play. You won't find this in the instructions, but you can turn the SRC-228 into an OWL2 dictionary by doing the following: at the "Ready" prompt, type in **otcwl and press "Enter." The "Ready" prompt will be replaced with "Search OTCW List" and you will now be able to check a lot of new words. It will only give a definition for the OSPD4 words, but it will say "Correct Word" for the OWL2 words. These words will also show up on your "Build" list. Besides the naughty words, OWL2 also adds a lot of words that are trademarks such as "Kleenex" and "Aqualung." This feature will stay in effect until you change the batteries or disable it. **otcwl acts as a toggle, so if don't want the kids to have access to these words, just enter it again and it reverts to OSPD4.

Note that like the printed version, the electronic version only contains words up to 8 letters in length (with the exception of inflected forms of those words). So a correct word like "submariner" would not be found in it. You'll need an extra dictionary if someone plays a bigger word. (This doesn't happen that often.)

censoring offensive terms
You can tell this model from the 226 by a slightly different color pattern and perhaps a little bit more readable screen.

But the big difference in this machine is that tho it has given us qi and za to use, it has taken away a lot of the old staples. What it has taken out is all the words that you would look up as a kid that were "naughty" and all the terms that were in the old dictionaries that had "offensive term" behind it.

But overall, it is an improvement in programability from the first credit card dictionary tho I have to say I miss the size and feel of the old ones.

Al