The 4600 has so many dictionaries it requires a shift key to access them all. The unshifted are the Koujien, a massive J-J dictionary; the Oxford E-E; the katakana dictionary; and a J-E. Shifted are the kanji dictionary, the 'select a dictionary to look up your word' and something else I've forgotten. What is wrong with this scenario? Yup.
1. What English-speaking foreigner needs an Oxford E-E at their fingertips?
2. What English-speaking foreigner needs a katakana dictionary at their fingertips?
3. Above all, that inaccessible kanji function for people who don't learn kanji in grade school.
--Add to this that it's a Japanese kanji dictionary, that gives readings but no English definitions. Also the entries are up-down right-to-left. On a horizontal screen, up-down is not what I want, and not what gaijin are used to. Same goes for the Koujien.
What *else* is wrong? Possibly the fact that I have no manual, but I can't find the button that lets you change your jump from a single character to two characters. Without that button you can't easily look up compounds in the J-E, since the kanji dic doesn't do it for you. So: here is an unknown compound starting with an unknown kanji. Look up kanji in kanji dic. Find compound. Try to remember compound's reading, go to J-E, tap in compound, go to definition. Clunky. There *must* be a double jump function because there always has been, but I'm damned if I can figure what it is.
Oh, and the kanji dictionary gives you fewer noun and verb compounds than the kanji dic of the 9500. I compared. So much for that 'mammoth 410,000 entries' the 4600 kanji dictionary supposedly boasts. I want another 9500 with its three simple options- J-E, kanji, and E-J, and translations given in the kanji list of compounds. I mean, having a light-weight Koujien is useful, I agree-- saves me having to look things up in the massive paper Shinmeitai. But right now the 9500 is looking like a must-have, because my sister's just bit the dust, and my own is rising 18 years with odd scratches on the screen. Alas, the only eBay 9500 has exactly the same blurred line as mine. May have to buy it anyway.
