I'm looking for some electronic dictionary advice from all you knowledgeable skritter users out there.

I'm looking for an electronic dictionary that supports English (of course) and Japanese. I want to be able to look up some kanji and the cost isn't a big deal as long as it's worth its price. So far I've heard that Canon's Wordtank series is the best overall for native English speakers, but I've also met someone who has a Sharp Brain which has some pretty outstanding features (although all functions are mostly in Japanese).

Mostly, I just want to know what everyone out there has experience with. What do you have and what have you seen or heard about? I'll be traveling to Tokyo this weekend, so I want some ideas to be able to shop for. Thanks!

Oops, I misspelled Kanji in the title haha. Well you get the point :).

I can't recommend a good dictionary to you, but I can tell you I wasn't very happy with the Canon Wordtank, especially for the price tag. You could do all the basic dictionary functions with the one I had (sorry I can't remember which model), but it wasn't very versatile. For example, I bought it 2-3 years ago and you couldn't copy/paste or look up words inside of definitions. Though I did feel the definitions and example sentences were good, I hold pocket electronic dictionaries to a higher standard and feel they should do a little more.

Cool. Thanks for the feedback!

Get an iPod and download some dictionaries for it. They are the easiest to use and are just as good or better (in most cases) than the native dictionaries.

Yeah, I was wondering about the iPod. I have an Android phone, but I'm sick of paying for a data plan. Are there any good iPod Touch (iPhone) Japanese-English dictionary apps that don't require an internet connection, and have Kanji lookup?

Maksym was using a Casio Ex-Word Dataplus 4 XD-SP6600, and it was sick. He said there are probably a couple newer versions by now.

:)

http://binsento.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/casio-ex-word-dataplus-5-xd-a10000-hands-on/

I have a Sharp Papyrus PW-AT760. I bought it about three years ago and it is still fine. It was the cheapest dictionary that had a pad for drawing kanji into, and having clubbed together with two other people to haggle 20% off a bulk buy in Takashimaya it cost about 18,000yen. Have always been very happy with it.

Menus are all in Japanese but you can use it on itself to tell you what any obscure bits do once you master the copy/paste function.

I am sure there are more advanced devices out there now, but be careful of what the extra cost gets you -- do you need a colour screen? Do you need an in-built TV? Do you need an MP3 player? Do you need tinny audio recordings? Do you need advanced Hebrew-Japanese dictionaries of chemistry terminology...?

The only functions I actually use are the basic J->E, E->J, J->J dictionaries, the kanji dictionary, the kanji input pad, example sentences and "jump" (which lets you select any text on the screen and then jump to see any separate entries for it).

James