Casio EX-Word Dataplus 5 XD-A10000 hands on
I recieved the newest incarnation of CASIOs excellent line of electronic dictionaries in the mail today. I haven’t had alot of time to use it yet but as far as I can tell it’s spectacular. The upper screen touchpanel is crisp, extremly bright and ALOT more readable than all the previous generations. CASIO implemented extensive marking and notetaking capability in this baby which makes it alot of fun to work your own notes. Besides the bright colour display the biggest advantage seems to be the weight and size, which was reduced considerable. Also the screen is not nearly as thick and heavy as before, resulting in a more balanced machine that’s not going to fall over on touch
Here are some pictures. Note the bling bling metallic finish. This one has all the goodies and can probably be considered to be the top model. I ordered it for about 50.000 Yen via kakaku.com. It’s also available on amazon.jp but they couldn’t deliver in time (expected to be in stock on the 28th).
Edit: After using this baby for a few days I can’t stress enough how much of an improvement over previous generations the Dataplus 5 provides. The menu speed is blazing, no lag while inputting characters, superb energy management, including native support for Eneloop batteries and the small footprint should really get anyone considering to buy the now cheap Dataplus 4 models to reconsider. Don’t do it! The added value of the Dataplus 5 can hardly be expressed in money.
Also a Video:
Great review! Any ideas as to where I could go about buying one for under 600 dollars from the U.S.? Thanks!
Hi,
I bought the Data Plus5 while I was in Japan this summer. I am a Japanese teacher, but being a native speaker it’s sometimes harder to use since there isn’t an English menu on it. I was wondering, do you happen to know how to access a kanji dictionary on it? Thanks!
Whoops! I meant a non-native speaker.
How can you be a Japanese teacher and not be able to read whats written on there?
It’s the third button at the top. 漢語林 kangorin
Press it two times then you’re in the dictionary.
Thanks you for your help. I’m not a native speaker. I study constantly, I’m not anywhere near fluent in kanji yet. My college didn’t require that a non-native learn 1945 characters.
Hi, Sarah. I am a Japanese translator/interpreter, and am considering teaching Japanese someday. I, too, am a non-native. Are you an American? If you’d like to chat sometime, please send me an mail. I’ll add you to my facebook.
Tomodachi ni natte moraemasen ka.
yankee.samurai@hotmail.com
Ow, ow, ow. That’s a real beauty. When I bought my XD-GP9700 a couple of years ago, it cost about as much as this one… and oh, how much more brilliant this one is!
Glad to hear it is as awesome at it seems when you read about it. (I could need that old Japanese dictionary right now…)
Hi there!
I do have the 2009 (DATAPLUS 4) model (the french XD-GF7250) and it’s so great, I hesitated for 4/5 years before eventually buying it.
These new models seem great. I’d really like to know if the kanji stroke order takes benefit from the Blanview colour screen by, for instance, showing stroke starts with red dot or something like that.
Could you tell me please?
It’s in the 新漢語林 ‘s 解説 button.
There is no colour benefit regarding the stroke order. Its just B/W, showing the strokes in single images, one for every stroke.
Thanks very much for your reply, that’s very nice and useful.
Then, I am not sad with my good “old” black and white DATAPLUS 4!
But it’s a pitty that they don’t go for something like kanjicafe.com’s red dots.
It’s because this is not like this in the source dictionary, of course.
Well there isn’t really much use to the red dots after having mastered the basic rules for writing Kanji. After all this is a device made for japanese users. Insofar a beginner can be glad to have stroke order display at all.
Of course but it can be of some help in some particularly special cases. Just in the beginning of learning, I agree. I use this machine as much as a learning device than just as a multiple dictionaries.
But if we say that we could also say that stroke order could be completely left out of the shinkangorin. But that would be quite a shame, wouldn’t it?… (^_^)
Anyway I understand why there are no red dots (for the reasons you said and because they are not part of the printed shinkangorin), and it’s not like if I needed them so much altogether. I just wanted to know if there was that kind of extra stuff in new models.
Anyway those machines are really great stuff. After being very sceptical I now cannot live without it.
(^_^)
Tristan.
Hi @ll,
I have a question, if I buy this device in Japan is it possible to change menu language to English instead of Japanese.
Also can I add additional dictonaries to translate English-German.
Unfortunatly this model is not available in Germany.
I am native English speaker and want to have English-German, English-Japanese. Since I work in Japanese company in Germany, I need both.
Hi EH,
The CANON electronic dictionaries are known to have switchable english menus. But the CASIO here have better content (imo) and having the menus in japanese will improve your language abilities with time.
However possible to upgrade german dictionary, I encourage you to directly get the GERMAN EX-word.
Current German model is XD-D7100.
@EH
It’s not possible to change the menu language and as far as I know there are no Ger-Eng Eng-Ger dictionaries available, as these devices cater to the japanese user.
You can however add Ger-Jap Jap-Ger dictionaries. In your case I would rather use dict.cc for Eng-Ger Ger-Eng and use the kenkyusha Eng-Jap Jap-Eng.
Actually I am located in Germany (Osaka until Mid-February) and have two of these for sale. If you’re interested, please make an offer.
As you can see here: http://goo.gl/1hjOI This model still goes for about 400 Euro if you buy a new one.
They are in mint condition with no visible scratches and no damage. I would throw in a CD with the Jap-Ger Ger-Jap dictionaries as well. Although they are a REAL pain to install I can confirm that they do work most excellent.
I also would not worry too much about the menu language. The Eng-Jap Jap-Eng dictionaries are accessible via a single hardware button, so no need to search your way through cryptic menus. If you can read katakana/hiragana you will be fine.