Can I Ipod touch/Iphone be now a serious replacement for denshi jisho?
 

Hello,
let me preface is with the following: I am a serious Japanese learner (have done 3 years of college education, spend a few summers in Japan). I am now going to do field research for a year in Tokyo (will mainly research Japanese govern. documents + newspaper). Now I am looking for a tool that would help me.

I've noticed that recently dictionary applications for Ipod/Iphone seem to be of good quality and can qualify as fullfledged Japanese dictionaries. E.g. there is Eijiro, Jim Breen's Edict with EdPPocket, Japanese, SlovoED, Wisdom etc. and of course apps that are completely free of charge such as Kotoba.

For more info:

EBPocket Professional for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store
Best Study Japanese iPhone Apps

Now it seems that I could buy an Ipod simply to use it as a Japanese translation tool and enjoy its own functions by the side - rather than going for a traditional Denshi Jisho.

I do have worries though: while Ipod/Iphones do have a hand-written recognition software, I am not sure if fingers can be ever as precise when looking up a complicated kanji than a stylus? Anyone can comment?

Secondly, I'd like to have a dictionary which contains examples and sample sentences but also one which would allow me to illuminate a word and direclty look it up in a sentence. Not sure this is still possbile.

If there are any users are there who know Japanese well and can comment on the use of Ipod/Iphones as translation tools, please let me know what you think!!!
Thank you very much.


btw. I don't mind bying dictionaries online for 20$ or 30$ for Ipod as long as it's a good dictionary.

I'm actually curious about this as well.

In the past I've found some of the Nintendo DS Kanken programs/games like Kanji Sono Mama Rakubiki Jiten 「漢字そのまま楽引辞典」, 250 Man Nin No Kanken 「250万人の漢検」 and Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshu 「なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習」 very helpful but it is somewhat embarrassing for a guy to pull out a NDS and work with it.

I've dabbled with some of the iPod Japanese language apps and have found them to be very good as well like CodefromTokyo's Nihongo Jisho, Shogakukan's Daijisen Nihongo Jisho and JISHOP's Advanced Jisho. I also kind of like the JLPT tutor programs. I like the fact that these are updated every so often so they are kept fairly current but all the good Japanese Language assist programs are indeed expensive.

With the new iPhone G4 out I wonder if functionality/response time will improve with that.

I don't have an iPad yet but it would be interesting to hear how these apps work with that.