Product Description

The Sharp PW-E250 electronic dictionary is a compact, all-in-one, lightweight pocket reference, containing the full contents from four Oxford University Press reference books, creator of "The World's Most Trusted Dictionaries." With PW-E250's easy search features and large viewing screen, it's never been easier to access a dictionary & thesaurus, Spanish/English translations, geographical dictionary and a puzzle solvers guide.

Product Details

• Brand: Sharp
• Model: PWE-250

Features

• Contains full contents of the Oxford Pocket American Dictionary and Thesaurus
• More than 150,000 word entries, synonyms, and senses
• Includes Oxford Pocket Spanish Dictionary with 90,000+ words and phrases and 130,000+ translations
• Includes Oxford Essential Guide for Puzzle Solvers; helps solve crosswords and anagrams
• Device measures 5.2 x 0.5 x 3.9 inches (WxHxD)

Amazon.com Product Description
The Sharp PW-E250 Pocket Oxford Spanish English Dictionary & Thesaurus is a compact and lightweight reference that contains the full content of four Oxford University Press reference books. With a small form factor, a large easy-to-read screen, and easy search features, you'll never be without the right word wherever you go. The PW-E250 features the Oxford Pocket American Dictionary and Thesaurus, which has more than 150,000 entries, synonyms, and senses. The Oxford Pocket Spanish Dictionary includes 90,000-plus words and phrases and more than 130,000 translations. For crossword enthusiasts, the Oxford Essential Guide for Puzzle Solvers arranges words by the number of letters. And the Oxford Essential Geographical Dictionary is newly revised with pronunciations.

The PW-E250 has features that make it a cinch to find what you need. The QWERTY keyboard lets you input words quickly and comfortably. The Super Jump feature enables quick cross-reference between dictionaries, and a Quick View lets you display the first line of each definition. For the crossword solver, you can search for words you are unsure of by inputting a "?" into the spaces that you don't know, and a list of possible words with the right amount of letters will appear. A Zoom Key makes switching between small and large fonts a snap. The Sharp PW-E250 Pocket Oxford Spanish English Dictionary & Thesaurus runs on one battery and is backed by a 1-year warranty.

Customer Reviews

Very useful, but not as complete as I would like it to be.
I am an English and Spanish teacher. I bought this pocket dictionary mostly for my Spanish students. I now have four of them. All of the functions are easy to use, and the definitions are fairly complete and offer the words used in context. The problem is that there are a lot of words that are not in this dictionary. I find that when I try to use this myself, most of the words that I look up are not in the Spanish-English dictionary.
This is a good product for beginning/intermediate users. For advanced users, I recommend getting a Spanish-only dictionary. These, in electronic form, are very difficult to come by, and very expensive.
The English dictionary/thesaurus functions are easy to use and fairly complete. Overall, I recommend it, while acknowledging its limitations. I would prefer something with fewer functions, and a larger, more comprehensive Spanish-English dictionary.

Served me well in Spain
As a long-ago high school student of Spanish with some exposure to the language on infrequent trips to Puerto Rico and Mexico I needed quick and easy language back-up for a 2 week business/pleasure trip to Spain. The Sharp PW-E250 came through with flying colors. It automatically suggests common and useful phrases, in addition to definitions, when I input even partial Spanish words. This very useful when ordering food, getting travel directions or even making complex purchases (electronic equipment). The Sharp is very easy to use. Simply push the Spanish-English or English-Spanish button (no need to push the start button) and it is instantly ready to translate. Power drain must be minimal -- the single AAA battery is still good after using the translator for my trip and help in translating publications for many weeks after my return. It is compact easy to read in all light conditions in which you would read a printed dictionary, has big enough buttons to avoid fumbling and has a very useful calculator. I find it much faster and more functional than a phrase book or full dictionary. It replaced my desktop Spanish-English dictionary. I highly recommend it.

Good, backlit everyday English and English-Spanish dictionary
I actually got this as an on-the-go backup for my main Sharp PW-E550 English electronic dictionary. I'm not using the Spanish-English part of this gadget so can't comment on that part. There are about 90,000 English entries (and another 60,000 Spanish ones). An entry is a word, a phrase, a person's or geographic name, etc. Let's put this way, it has most of the commonly used (English) words. The vocabulary is "PG-13" if you know what I mean, so don't look for vulgar slangs here.

There are basically three dictionaries here:

1. English dictionary and Thesauras (Oxford American Pocket version)
2. English-Spanish
3. Spanish-English

Two salient features of this dictionary are: 1) the keyboard is very comfortable to use (but the layout takes getting used to), and 2) it has backlight, which is fabulous. I love this dictionary. I still need my PW-E550 when I read serious books because that one's got twice as many words and definitions. But for everyday use, e.g., when you read newspapers or just want to have fun with words, this is a good companion. Did I mention it has (green) backlight at the touch of a button?

The dictionary uses one AAA battery. If you don't use backlight, the one battery should last a long time. (I know this because my PW-E550 is very power-efficient.) If you use backlight a lot, obviously you should carry a spare AAA with you.

If you have kids, this is good for up to grade 10 or 11, I believe. After that, a kid needs the bigger-lexicon PW-E550, depending on the quality of your school district, of course.