Comments on: New Talking Phrase Translator in 5 Languages

This is a great offering that will serve PalmOne well.

Palm Enthusiast since 1998

First of all, it's a vast improvement over the old PalmPak translator card I had. It uses the standard Franklin Reader thingie all of the other MDM reference titles use (the Brittanica card & the Dictionary card) but it's nicely improved-none of the G2 bugs the Brittanica Encyclopedia had.

A few quickies I've noticed just from playing around with it:

-SUPPORTS T3 320*480 with no problems or hiccups. NICE!

-Adjustable font sizes/styles.

-Navigation within the program is a bit clumsy (I've had trouble changing my languages-say, if I am translating English to German and then want to see what that same phrase is in German to Spanish I have to fumble around to get back to the main screen where it lets you pick your language(s).

-The voice is synthesized but quite good--perhaps on par with the NOAA weather radio voices (if you are a weatherband radio fan like I am) but more pleasant sounding. Sampling rate seems to leave a little to be desired (voices sound kinda scratchy) but pronounciation is top-notch in all of the languages & terms I've been able to recognize personally (I speak some German).

-Different voices for each language. For example, it's a slightly gruff sounding lady(?) style synthesized voice that does English but a far more pleasant female-style voice that does Italian. The German and French voices are also pretty decent too.

-Volume is also good but of course depends on how you've configured your Palm prefs. I tested the card on my father's Zire 71 and it DID lock up 2x in his unit (but worked after a reset) so Z71 users be warned...Works like a charm on my T|T3 and T|C.

-Loading of audio files is also quite speedy, at least on the above units. On anything less than a Tungsten/OS5 Palm, it'd be a total waste since audio output would not be supported.

-A pleasant surprise was the variety of the canned phrases they had in there. Stuff like "Where is the nearest disco?" (always a riot to bust that one on some unsuspecting European natives!) up to fairly elaborate things like "Is this normal behavior in this country" or "I do not feel well. Can you please direct me to a doctor" which sounds substantially better than "I am sick. Where is the doctor?" especially if you are like me and halfway fluent in another language but not totally at ease with stringing together multiple sentences.

-Card size is...32mb (I *think*) but I may have been wrong.

I have played with the card regretably very little since purchasing it but I can chime in here if anyone has any more questions as I spend more time with the title. It's definitely the best Palm/MDM title released so far (Brittanica is a close 2nd though) and an absolute must-have for anyone who travels or has foreign friends/family and would rather not cram a Babel fish down their ear canal ;-)