John R. Yamamoto-Wilson wrote on 7/14/2006 2:13 AM:
<snip>
> Is there a basic version left on the market, that just functions as a 
> dictionary, with a handwriting feature? Or have they thrown the baby out 
> with the bathwater, or drowned the little mite, or whatever?

I have the SL-C3100. Now while it does have a lot of other features (it is a PDA
not a dictionary), it does have a dictionary program (with a 5th edition Kojien
and 3rd Genius E-J), hand-writing recognition (available in any program, not
just the dictionary), kana input & kanji conversion, etc. The hand-writing
recognition is available just by tapping an icon at the bottom of the screen
which brings up the recognition areas (large squares essentially with some
controls around it to change how it works, for instance to limit to kana only).

The hand-writing recognition is pretty forgiving but does seem to be fairly
dependent on stroke order / direction. I don't know if there is any way to do
radical style lookups, etc. but maybe (I prefer to just draw). You can also add
dictionaries if in the right format.

But, you said "basic version". The SL-C3100 is not basic (in price or
functionality) so maybe not what you are looking for. But all the zaurus pdas
seem to have these features (I thought!), so you could either go with a lower
end current model or go find a used one. Any recent ones though are going to
have a lot of features it sounds like you wouldn't use.

Rachael