Perfect Thumb is a Windows Phone developer known for their simplistic approach to app design that doesn't sacrifice functionality. The developer's latest offering is the Windows Phone app Perfect Dictionary that follows this approach nicely.
The app offers an offline dictionary that covers over fifty languages that can be searched simultaneously. Perfect Dictionary also has support for audio pronunciations of words and the ability to mark words as favorites that can be pinned to your Start Screen.
As we have seen with other Perfect Thumb apps, Perfect Dictionary has a clean appearance, simple interface and is a healthy language dictionary for our Windows Phones.
When you first launch Perfect Dictionary your first order of business is to select a dictionary to use in your translations or searches. Just tap the download button to dive into things and pick your language. Perfect Dictionary supports over fifty languages that can be translated from or to and just a sampling of these languages include:
English, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified, China), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan), Dutch, Nederlands, French, François, German, Deutsch, Greek, Italian, Italiano, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian , Spanish, Española, Swedish, Svenska, Turkish, Indonesian, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Belarusian, Polish , Polski , Ukrainian, Czech, Estonian , Eesti , Bulgarian, Croatian, Finnish, Suomi , Hungarian, Magyar, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Bahasa Melayu , Thai, Afrikaans, Danish, Dansk, Serbian, Srpski, Norwegian, Norsk, Kiswahili, Kiswahili, Albanian, Shqip, Basque, Euskara, Catalan, Hindi, Icelandic, Irish , Gaeilge, Central Kurdish, Occitan, Persian, Romanian, Slovenian and Guarani
Each language may have multiple dictionaries to choose from and dictionary download sizes typically are in the neighborhood of one to fifteen megabytes. In just scanning the files, I cannot remember seeing any of the dictionaries being larger than seventy-five megabytes in size.
You can download as many dictionaries as your Windows Phone storage will allow and as you search for a word, the entire downloaded dictionary database will be scanned. You also have the option to install dictionaries from your microSD card.
Once you have a dictionary database downloaded, Perfect Dictionary's interface is straightforward. At the top of the main page is a word search field to help you find the word you are looking for. As you type, automatic word suggestions appear beneath each dictionary heading and once you see the word you are looking for, tap the word for the translation. If a particular dictionary does not have a translation for the word you are trying to find, it will not be displayed.
The translation screen will display the written, translated word along with an audio button to hear the pronunciation of the word. The banner at the top of the translation screen can be tapped to reveal a star, which adds the word to your favorites list, which is accessible by tapping the same banner from the search screen.
The ellipse menu button (the three-dot button) will give you access to Perfect Dictionary's menu options that includes managing your dictionaries, accessing the settings, viewing more Perfect Thumb apps and viewing the About Screen. Settings are minimal with options to change the theme of the app, set the language of the app, turning on/off the search history and clearing the search history. The search history is displayed on the search screen when your keyword field is empty.
Overall Impressions
There is not a lot of bells and whistles with Perfect Dictionary but what is in place works well. I like that the dictionary databases are offline and that multiple dictionaries can be searched at once.
The interface will feel a little busy when you first begin using Perfect Dictionary but after a few word searches, the flow becomes more natural and easier to zip through. I wouldn't mind having the option to go online or add a larger dictionary into the mix to see the meanings of the words as well as the translations. Plus the settings could use a font size option for those of us who have aging eyes.
Even though there is some room for improvement, Perfect Dictionary joins the likes of Perfect Music, Perfect Recorder and Perfect Flashlight as a quality Windows Phone app from Perfect Thumb. If you are looking for a simple dictionary translation app, Perfect Dictionary may be just what you are searching for.
Download Perfect Dictionary for Windows Phone (Free)
