Franklin DBE-1440 Pocket Spanish/English Dictionary

by Franklin Electronics

Product Details

Product Manual [302kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 3.5 x 0.5 inches ; 5 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00000JSFV
• Item model number: DBE-1440
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 1, 1999

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Students, travelers, and anyone who needs to use Spanish in ordinary circumstances will appreciate the Franklin DBE-1440 Pocket Spanish Master with a Larousse Dictionary for easy and instant word translations. As a dictionary, this exceedingly compact and extensive guide includes 2 million translations with advanced verb conjugation to help improve your Spanish vocabulary and spelling through Franklin's LEARNables. As a traveler's aide-de-camp, the grammar guide and foreign language phrases make the DBE-1440 an essential tool for nonfluent Spanish speakers.

Haven't mastered your language tapes yet? You may discover that the DBE-1440 is your newest travel necessity. With the grammar guide and a variety of useful traveler's phrases and cultural notes, you can translate words instantly to negotiate menus, shopping, and navigation. Or you can plan ahead and use the grammar guide to learn parts of speech and verb tenses, conjugating verbs at the press of a button.

Whether Spanish is your first or second language, the DBE-1440 is perfect for those who want to explore and immerse themselves in the lexicon. You can create your own list of words to study, or select a word and instantaneously find its translation. The DBE-1440 also contains Spanish culture notes for reference, and its five-line display improves readability.

As with all the Franklin handheld dictionaries, the DBE-1440 Pocket Spanish Master allows you to learn a new word in Spanish every time you turn the device on, find a word you don't know how to spell, and enjoy the process of learning Spanish through crossword puzzles or seven other language games. Whether you're in school, a student of foreign language, or traveling the world, this dictionary is the perfect companion.

Product Description

Over 2,000,000 translations on a 5-line display with 100% more viewable text; expandable BOOKMAN advanced verb conjugation, grammer guide, TOEFL, plus over 1,000 travelers' phrases.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very good for espanol to english, July 9, 2000

By 

Daniel Brockman (Petaluma, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Franklin DBE-1440 Pocket Spanish/English Dictionary (Office Product)

I thought I could more easily read Gabriel Garcia Marquez "El General en su Labertino" if I didn't spend so much time turning the pages of a paper dictionary to look up unfamiliar words. Indeed this Franklin product is much faster than paper, and much easier to read than the Univ. of Chicago dictionary I had been using. The Franklin seems to have a larger vocabulary. The conjugation function is excellent. The paper dictionary does have a few pages of narrative describing Espanol and description of regional variations, and the Franklin omits these. I have some minor complaints . The stiffness of the keys sometimes results in missing characters in input words (partially saved by the automatic spelling corrector). The asterisk should be lower case. While easily freed, sometimes the on/off button gets stuck. On the whole, it's a fine product. For my purposes, it is 99.44% satisfactory.

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent electronic dictionary, but flawed in a major way, January 19, 2002

By 

Vipal Prem (Bothell, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Franklin DBE-1440 Pocket Spanish/English Dictionary (Office Product)

This is one of the best electronic Spanish/English dictionaries I've ever owned. This and other Franklin dictionaries seem to have more "up-to-date" meanings and usage demonstrations than some others I've tried. I really like the fact that you can highlight words in definitions and look them up as well. The games are OK, but I never found them to be particularly useful. Overall, this would be an EXCELLENT choice, but with one caveat: DO NOT TRY TO USE THE BUILT-IN CARD SLOT FOR OTHER BOOKMAN TITLES.

I purchased the Merriam-Webster English dictionary card in order to extend the capabilities of a device that I chose, in part, because it had expansion possibilities, and initially it worked fine. It was really cool that one could switch between the two dictionaries and transfer a word from one to the other.

However, the card technology is POORLY DESIGNED as the data connector is flimsy in that it relies on pressure to maintain contact (as opposed to pins in slots, like most card connections), and these are vulnerable to pocket lint, etc. This seems to be something that Franklin knows about, but isn't answering questions. (I wrote them about future titles for the Bookman series and they said no further ones were being developed, which surprised me, as the expandability of the Bookman products would seem to otherwise be a major selling point. Apparently, they had given up on that technology after only a few titles came out, and now I know why.)

After 3 months use the add-on card became inaccessible, and its presence was wreaking havoc with the built-in Spanish dictionary--erasing word lists that I had created, etc.

I just recently passed the end of the 1-year warranty period, and the DBE-1440 has now stopped working altogether. I checked the batteries and they are fine. The unit has never been in the rain or stepped on, or even dropped on a hard surface. I just doesn't work any longer.

Because I like the way Franklin designs its software for its Spanish/English dictionaries, I would still consider buying a different model in the future. But I would avoid anything based on the Bookman card system. I haven't heard any other negative reports about this particular unit, but maybe people are not adding other cards to the system and leaving the little space-holder that comes with the unit in place. Perhaps if this is never removed the unit would function properly over a longer period of time.

I hope this info is helpful.

Vipal Prem

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Satisfied., November 15, 1999

By 

Jaded "Rat" (Boca Raton, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Franklin DBE-1440 Pocket Spanish/English Dictionary (Office Product)

I just started learning Spanish and this translator has been a very big help. It is easy to use, and it has both a full function calculator and somes games. The unit that I have does have the ability to conjugate verbs in all tenses. You just have to press the conjugate button additional times to get the various tenses.