Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition Review: Covering 2.4 million words including Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, a learning tool for "study, work, and life"

For those who are learning a foreign language, the most common challenge is probably the sudden appearance of unfamiliar words and characters. Although we now have smartphones and the Internet, and no longer need to hold thick dictionaries to look up words one by one, have you ever thought about this, dear? Once you take out your mobile phone when studying, I am afraid that most of your subsequent study time will be spent on Weibo and Taobao.

Taking this extremely prominent reality contradiction into consideration, NetEase Youdao brought us the Youdao Dictionary Pen for instant text and voice translation as early as 2018. It was well received as soon as it was released, and it saved a lot of real study time for the vast number of students.

Last year, after reviewing the NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2.0, I was deeply impressed by this product. One year later, NetEase Youdao continued its efforts and launched an upgraded version of the product - NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition. On June 11, NetEase was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the second time. Ding Lei announced on the spot that he would give away the Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition to English teachers nationwide, and in the evening live broadcast, he also focused on introducing this Youdao Dictionary Pen, which made us very curious about this pen.

Today, let’s experience the Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition, which is known as a student’s best friend, work assistant, and travel companion, and see what kind of upgrades have been made to its “internal strength”.

1. Going further on the basis of 2.0

Scan and translate

The front of the NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition is very simple. There is a Home button with a bright orange edge in the center of the body, which is not available in the first generation of products. It is convenient for users to notice the Home button visually at the first time. After all, its operation is very simple, and you can basically go around the world with just one HOME button.

On the back of the device, there is no other cumbersome design except for a whole piece of frosted metal back cover. In addition, the metal back cover adopts a large arc edge design. When scanning with one hand, the arc edge and the arc of the finger complement each other, bringing a very comfortable grip.

In the previous generation of products, the spring + transparent window design of the scanning port of Youdao Dictionary Pen won unanimous praise from users. Now this ingenious design has been inherited. While ensuring that it is simple and easy for users to use, it can also avoid accidental touches, killing two birds with one stone.

Some friends may not understand why the appearance of Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition has not changed much. In fact, just like the appearance of mobile phones today, there is really no need for further subversion. Moreover, as long as we think along the functional points of Youdao Dictionary Pen, we can find that completely changing the appearance will be counterproductive. After years of practical testing, the current appearance is designed for users to hold it easily and quickly look up new words. Just like Apple's design language, once it is formed, it rarely changes.

Focus on "Dictionary" upgrade

NetEase Youdao is well aware that users who purchase Youdao Dictionary Pen are aiming for "translation". Therefore, based on the pinnacle of scanning, the NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition must have enhanced the "dictionary" function.

From the configuration point of view, it is equipped with 1GB of memory, which is rare in translation pen products. The product improvement is visible to the naked eye. Whether it is scanning or voice playback, it will be smoother than the previous generation of products. At the same time, its storage space has also been upgraded to 16GB, which can basically hold dictionaries of all existing languages ​​in the world. Yes, I am not exaggerating, all. From this point of view, it has killed all similar products in seconds.

One of the biggest hardware upgrades of the Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition is the change in appearance color - only deep lake blue is retained. Compared with the three solid colors of the previous NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2.0, the deep lake blue of the professional version is deeper and more restrained.

In terms of the core sound, the NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition has added a 1W speaker, which makes the external speaker more three-dimensional and clear. And considering the privacy of certain scenes, the professional version also supports Type-C interface headphones, allowing us to immerse ourselves in the ocean of dictionaries.

Taking into account that users currently mainly need English translation, NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition has added the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (7th edition) in addition to the high school dictionary, Chinese-English dictionary, SSAT, SAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS, and Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary, covering a total of nearly 2.4 million words in the database.

Of course, users have diverse needs. With the steady progress of the China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Zone, our exchanges with Japan and Korea will surely deepen. This product also supports translation between Japanese and Korean languages. In other words, a small Youdao dictionary pen can not only help you improve your English scores, but also meet your global needs in Chinese-English, Chinese-Korean, and Chinese-Japanese translation.

It is worth mentioning that due to the small demand, there are actually almost no hardware products on the market that perfectly support Japanese and Korean translation, and most software translations are just mechanical "machine translations" with little value in actual use. In this regard, Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition has set a precedent in the industry, raising this function to a professional level, and providing a variety of reliable translations, which truly meets the actual needs of users.

Interestingly, this product breaks the limitation that translation hardware products can only convey information visually, and extends functions such as English reading and listening player, greatly expanding the interactive usage scenarios.

Overall, NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition has grasped the pulse of users' purchase of translation products. It does not seek to promote itself with multi-functional gimmicks, but takes the functional dimension of "dictionary" as its cornerstone, and solidly brings practical scenarios of higher dimensions such as super large vocabulary, Japanese and Korean small language translation, and English follow-up reading.

Both software and hardware, scanning and reading in one

NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition has really put a lot of effort into the software, but are its hardware and software really fully matched? Therefore, it is still necessary to practice Chinese-English, Chinese-Japanese, and Chinese-Korean translation.

According to the official introduction of NetEase Youdao, Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition uses self-developed AI technology and capabilities, which can achieve the fastest scanning speed of 240mm/s in the industry. In other words, it is equivalent to recognizing 40 Chinese characters per second. And based on the fast scanning, the average recognition accuracy of Youdao Dictionary Pen has increased from 95.5% when it was first launched in August 2019 to the current 96.8%, and the highest recognition accuracy exceeds 98.5%.

Unlike traditional electronic dictionaries or smart phones, this product can still be used for word search and translation even without Internet access. In other words, it has connotations and is not afraid of Internet access or not.

Without an internet connection, we asked it to scan a passage from a classic English novel (Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence) at a normal reading speed. As expected, the NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition accurately scanned all the words in a very short time and gave the translation content in the next second.

It is worth noting that, unlike traditional translation devices that can only translate in words, the NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition can not only translate entire sentences, but is also the industry's first intelligent word-searching hardware that supports entire paragraph scanning and translation. Combined with a translation speed comparable to reading a book, it can help us read foreign language content without obstacles.

In addition to "foreign to Chinese", NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition also supports "Chinese to foreign". After actual testing, NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition's "Chinese to foreign" translation is no different from "foreign to Chinese" in terms of speed and accuracy, just as fast and accurate as having an English CET-8 expert by your side at all times.

It is worth noting that in terms of the content and form of scanning, Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition supports the recognition of multiple fonts including traditional Chinese characters, and does not affect the accuracy of scanning recognition in extreme scanning environments such as vertical lines, large angles, and left-handedness. The combination of these two aspects means that NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition does not have to be limited to regular printed fonts, greatly expanding its usage scenarios.

2. A device that covers “study, work, and life”

A magical tool for learning foreign languages

Although Youdao Dictionary Pen has always been a product focused on translation functions, NetEase Youdao has not given up on product scenario construction. On the contrary, driven by functions, it can focus resources and deeply explore consumer needs.

For students learning various languages, the greatest value of Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition is that it can easily scan and identify "uncommon words". However, this is obviously not the only value it can bring to students.

As we mentioned above, the professional version also adds the function of following English words. Therefore, when students find "uncommon words", they can not only understand their meaning, but also read their pronunciation. With Youdao AI technology, it can also correct our pronunciation, helping us learn English more accurately.

Taking the above picture as an example, when we don’t know how to pronounce a certain word, we can directly ask Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition through the voice assistant, and then the word will be presented, and we can also understand the corresponding pronunciation and follow the reading in real time.

The most important thing in language learning is the environment. When you are in an English environment every day, your learning speed will naturally increase exponentially. Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition has added a listening player function. For this product with a 16G capacity, students can import 5,000 minutes of MP3 format listening audio files and practice English listening anytime and anywhere through speakers or external headphones.

Make work easier

In addition to studying, many jobs will inevitably involve contact with foreign languages, especially in some highly professional fields. The CET-4 and CET-6 English levels in school may be difficult to cope with, but Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition can easily solve this problem.

First of all, since Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition covers a huge vocabulary of 2.4 million words and owns the copyrights of many authoritative dictionaries including the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (7th edition), you will not panic even if you encounter professional terms or uncommon words.

Secondly, in addition to scanning for words, Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition also supports voice search. If we don’t know any English words, we only need to select the voice assistant function and speak Chinese, Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition will immediately give us the corresponding English, which can greatly simplify the search steps.

Make life more convenient

Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition not only meets the needs of language learners, but its diverse functions are also destined to bring unique value to the general public.

Take traveling abroad as an example. If you go to neighboring countries such as South Korea and Japan, it is easy to have communication problems due to language barriers. In this case, if we have Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition, we only need to scan the text on the product or menu to easily obtain accurate information.

Or, girls who pursue fashion often like to read Japanese and Korean magazines, but because they have not learned Japanese and Korean professionally, it is difficult for them to understand the meaning of the magazine text. With Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition, you can easily translate the language of Japanese and Korean magazines, whether vertical or horizontal.

In addition, since Youdao Dictionary Pen can recognize regular script, if we want to communicate with people from other countries, we can also write Chinese characters on paper, and then translate them into the text of other countries by scanning and showing them to the other party, thus achieving "cross-language" communication in one fell swoop. What's more important is that this Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition can be used freely even without an Internet connection. According to the official introduction of NetEase Youdao, in the offline state, the accuracy of Japanese translation reached 98.77%, and the accuracy of Korean translation reached 98.07%.

For example, if you want to buy cosmetics from Japan, you may not understand the information on the cosmetics packaging due to language barriers, so you may buy the wrong product. If you have this product, you only need to scan it easily to get a "Chinese" description for yourself.

With the accelerated evolution of globalization, it is foreseeable that there will be more occasions in our daily lives that require foreign languages ​​in the future. At this time, its advantages are highlighted. With only one device, we can shuttle between English, Japanese and Korean languages ​​without any obstacles.

Fast, accurate, smart, reliable and elegant. These six words are a fair evaluation of the NetEase Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition. In fact, combined with the experience, we can find that the reason why this Youdao Dictionary Pen can achieve such a "miracle" is inseparable from its first-class software and hardware integration capabilities. With sufficient hardware capabilities, coupled with AI-powered software capabilities and a huge number of dictionaries, it is natural for it to become a translation artifact.

Although the functions of Youdao Dictionary Pen are relatively focused, NetEase Youdao did not give up on product development. On the contrary, driven by the functions, Youdao can focus resources and deeply explore consumer needs, bringing us the Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition, a culmination of its achievements.

From the above, we can see that Youdao Dictionary Pen Professional Edition supports functions such as English word reading, listening player, Japanese-Korean translation, etc. It can not only meet the needs of professionals, but also help the general public to cross the language gap and directly obtain cross-language information. Therefore, the birth of Youdao Dictionary Pen 2 Professional Edition is of epoch-making significance.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.