Travel SpeechGuard TL-2S

Overall impression  If you were like me you grew up watching Star Trek (a science fiction TV series) where they had universal speech translators that allowed the crew of the Enterprise to talk to anyone they encountered no matter what language they spoke.  When I heard Ectaco had a speech translator that could recognize spoken language and translate it on the fly, I got really excited.   I found that in practice, while this device will recognize spoken language and translate it into spoken language, it has a lot of limitations potential buyers should be aware of before purchasing it.

The TL-2S unit I tried had two translator programs,  an electronic dictionary with one million words and a phrasebook.  A pull down menu with a popup touch screen software keyboard allows the user to look up words.  After I looked up a word in the dictionary, I pressed the “say” button the TL-2S would use phonetic speech to say the word. The phrasebook contained 14,000 of the most commonly needed phrases.  By pressing the “say” button the audible speech would play back the digitally recorded voice of a human, which had excellent sound quality.  Any phrase in the phrasebook could be added to the Electronic Flash cards, a great learning tool.  I particularly liked the digitally recorded voices to listen to the pronunciation of phrases.

Here is a summary of the limitations of the TL-2S to be aware of.  The monochrome LCD screen was hard to read in a dark restaurant even with the large fonts selected and the screen backlight turned on.  The speech to speech translator was buggy, I crashed the software three times while speaking into it.  The speech to speech was slow to use; I had to be in the correct section of the phrase book before it could recognize a phrase.   To use the phrasebook section with any speed and efficiency, I would have to become intimately familiar with the phrasebook library of phrases.

Because I feel a premium is charged for speech-to-speech translation, and because the TL-2S speech to speech is not ready for prime time, I cannot recommend this device to my friends who are looking for a translator device. Speech-to-speech translation is certainly the wave of the future, but the future is not quite here yet.

Manufacturer/distributor Ectaco

Type of product Hand held language translator

Features   MP3 player, multimedia card slot (card included), 128 MB MMC Card contained English-Spanish Speechguard, with add on capacity for up to 20 languages, world time, daily alarm, calculator, currency and metric conversion, touch screen (320x 240 pixels),  stylus, screen backlight, auto off function to shut off translator when it’s idle, 120 – 240 VAC 50-60 Hz AC adapter, and rechargeable battery were included in my package.

It had a Li-Polymer rechargeable battery (3.7V, 1800mAh).  There was an extra microphone on a 4 foot wire and a spare stylus.  No installation or software was required.

Retail price $449.95

Description A few basics about electronic speech devices need to be covered before discussing the TL-2S.  There are two types of electronic voices used on the TL-2S.  One type is a digitally recorded voice of a person.  Digitally recorded voices are usually done with a professional whose voice is recorded while he or she reads. The recording is later played back as a digital recording.  This type of speech is limited to the specific phrases that have been prerecorded.  The second type is called phonetic speech.  It uses recorded vowels and recorded parts of speech and tries to construct spoken language on the fly from written text.  This type is the most flexible making it possible for any written words to be spoken. In practice it sounds robotic.  If you have ever heard an interview of Stephen Hawking’s with his voice device, then you have heard a phonetic speech device.

The TL-2S has a rugged handheld design with a strap on the back that keeps the user from dropping the unit.  The packaging reminds me of the Palm and Windows CE handheld computers used in industrial settings.  The stylus remains with the unit and slides into the back when not in use.

I tested the on the fly speech-to-speech translation on several occasions which with the phrasebook program.  I would press the “recognize” button and speak into the device’s microphone located on the front; it attempted to understand what I said, translate it, and automatically “speak” the translation using the output speaker on the back. 

When the TL-2S “speaks” in the phrasebook application, it uses the digitally recorded voice of a human, which has excellent sound quality and was easy to understand.   Here is where I had some trouble, if I didn’t say one of the TL-2S’s pre-programmed phrases exactly as it is written in the device, it would not recognize what I said.  In addition, I would have to put the phrase book into the right phrase book category, or it would not recognize what I was saying.  For example, if I wanted to say something about travel, I would have to select the travel group of phrases in the phrasebook, and then say something about travel.  On several occasions I would say something into the device and it would not translate it correctly.  I got the best results when I scrolled through the phrasebook, picked what I wanted to say ahead of time, and pressed the “say” button.  A little more bad news, when I was using speech recognition the unit crashed the software program on three separate occasions.  When the software crashed the unit locked up and would not respond to any commands.  To recover I had to reset the unit and re-initialize which took several minutes.

The built-in dictionary was functional and worked well.  The audible speech translator for the dictionary was a phonetic text to speech translator, which sounded robotic and was a bit harder to understand than human voices. The unit I tested had 6.11 MB of user memory with a 128 MB MultiMedia Card.

The maximum size MultiMedia Card the TL-2S supported was 512 MB. The multimedia card was located under the battery which is a little hard to get to.  This would be fine for installing another language pack, but to put music MP3’s on the TL-2S, required more effort than most people have become accustomed to with iPod type of devices.

World Time allowed me to see the time in a city within a time zone.  Some large cities were not listed, but I could easily find a major city somewhere in the time zone I was seeking; this allowed me to figure out what time it was in the region.

The Calculator and Currency/Metric Conversions were really handy for international travel internationally.  These applications had nice large touch screen keyboard interfaces and were easy to use.  They covered the most common conversions of interest to travelers.

The Daily Alarm allowed me to set an alarm every day.  It was possible to set a time, then enable or disable it for each day of the week.  I set the alarm to go off Monday through Friday at 6 a.m. only.  This alarm had capacity for one wake-up ring per day; not a daily scheduler like you find in a hand held palm computer where you can schedule multiple alarms per day.  The audible alarm was plenty loud enough to wake me up.  The speaker output on this device was impressive for its size.  However, when the device was “speaking” in another language, in a busy restaurant I had to put the device speaker next to the other person’s ear for him or her to hear it.

Made of Plastic

Made in USA

Colors Blue with grey and black buttons.  Grey (monochrome) LCD display screen

Sizes   3.9 x 1.2 x 7.1 inch, handheld size

Weight 11 ounces

Warranty  One year

Number of days tested 30

Country(s) tested USA

Other The unit coma with a nicely printed users manual and an electronic users manual available for viewing on the TL-2S.   I really liked having an electronic users manual on the device so I didn’t have to carry the printed one around.

Date of review March 2006

Would you use this product again?   No

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