The 500AL is a little wider than a smart phone and about as tall and thick. The case is a thick plastic, and the unit feels pretty solid. If you look at the image, you'll notice that the lid is a little offset from the back of the unit. This actually alleviates tension on the joint and makes the unit more stable when opened on a table. It is a very nice design feature.
Display:
The active screen is smaller than the unit, which is indicated in the product image. There are static graphics of falling letters on either side of the screen that the image does not show. These are a little visually distracting, but not horrible. The LCD screen is very old school - monochromatic and NOT backlit. You won't be able to read it in dim lighting. Additionally, the plastic cover on the screen is high-gloss, so bright light is an issue too. Based on the side-graphics, no backlight, and gloss, it was a bit of an effort to read the screen at times.
On the flip side, the lack of a backlight and simplicity of image causes very little drain on the battery. It is easy to forget how quickly smart phones, GPS devices, and computers die when there is no power source. I used my translator quite a bit over a 5 week period and the battery is showing 3/4 full. This is also helpful because the on/off button needs to be pushed to turn it off. Closing the cover won't turn it off, so it could be easy to forget and leave the unit on for a period of time.
Keyboard:
It is well sized. You will need to thumb type, but it is much easier than most smart phones. The keys require a fairly firm press to work, and that was annoying for fast typing. I found I needed to backspace quite a bit from missed letters.
Note: Take the time to read the instructions before your trip or bring them with you. Some of the alternative key commands and setup options are not intuitive.
Language packs:
The 500AL comes with many, many languages on a preinstalled SD card. That was the big selling point for me. Where else could I find both Latvian and Czech in a single translator? I did not have to download anything, but I think you can if needed. I went on their website to look, but the site was incredibly confusing. You have to load each language pack from the SD card one at a time, replacing the previous one. This takes quite some time, at least a full 5 minutes, to do. So you can't flip between multiple languages in a conversation. This didn't bother me because I was only using one language per country.
The description does not contain the full list of languages. They are:
Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese (Kana and Kanji), Korean, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese. (Not all languages are supported both to and from English or in TTS -see below)
Functions:
The 500AL's dictionary is not a full sentence translator. It will only do one word at a time (there is a phrasebook however). I found the dictionary to contain more words than my pocket dictionary, and it did a pretty good job. Once the language pack is loaded, you can switch between English and the loaded language, but you have to go through the setup menu options. This was cumbersome because it required a few steps to do. It would be better to have a quick button to do this.
**Not all languages are supported in both directions! I could get English > Latvian, but I could NOT do Latvian > English! Czech and German were supported. This is contrary to the item description!
Note: If you choose a foreign language to English setting, all the menu items will be in that language! Try to familiarize yourself with menu items while in English first.
Note: When typing in a foreign language, make sure you type the non-latin letters appropriately using the alt key. The translator won't figure it out if you use an English letter instead.
The phrasebook is pretty handy too. It will take you through categories to find particular phrases. It is helpful to get the category set up before you might need it.
The TTS (text to speech) is useless. The voice is not the quality of GPS devices. Think 1980's computer voice. At one point I played a translation for a vendor in Germany and she didn't even acknowledge it. TTS is NOT available for all languages.
Hangman is a translation version - helpful only if you are learning a language. SAT, English Grammar, USA interview, and Idioms are for people wanting to live/study in the U.S. The currency converter was nice to have, but you have to set the exchange rate manually. World clock, metric converter, and calculator are just ok.
I do think the 500AL was worth the $100. It was not a full conversational aid, but it helped out in a number of pinches. Just the mass number of languages the unit has is great, and it is easier to use than a dictionary book. It was nice to hold the device up to someone to read. Much easier than pointing to a word or phrase in a book.
I am testing all the language packs for TTS and reverse language support. A partial list is below (got as far as Lithuanian alphabetically). I'll update with more language talking translator
Reverse translation (from "LANGUAGE" to English) in the A-L languages ONLY supported when using: Czech, French, German, Italian
TTS is supported in A-L languages with: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, Greek, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese (Kana and Kanji), Korean
More information at Ectaco 500AL Oxford Multi-Language Electronic Translator
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