Latest Gadgets review: The Scrabble Master

A cup of tea and a slice of toast in the morning. Hitting the bed after a long day. There are many small pleasures in life. But surely reaching for the dictionary during a Scrabble game and realising that the outlandish word you’ve just procured from the depths of your brain is indeed a verified and usable word is up with the best of them – transforming a mere word into a point scoring weapon of lexicon majesty all with the help of a humble dictionary/

But now you don’t have to get your fingers dusty raking through your dictionary because Franklin have just released an electronic version of the Official Scrabble Dictionary.

And it promises not only to check the validity of words against the Collins Dictionary but to offer a Scrabble Tutor feature where users can hone their hooking, tagging and blocking skills.

It all comes in a small but not-quite-pocket sized handheld device – measuring at 12.5 x 5 x 2.3cm – and it is decked out the familiar green and red hues of the Scrabble box. The QWERTY keys meanwhile are akin to a handheld electronic dictionary you might find in the classroom.

Its exhaustive list of dictionary words is this gadget’s main selling point – and it delivers, with all the newbies included too, featuring a plethora of slang And for all the linguistic chin scratchers out there, there’s a definition included for each entry too.

The other functions wilt in comparison to its behemoth dictionary powers, with the Pattern function – a cheat’s way out allowing you to devise words around existing letters on the board – a tad confusing and restrictive at times, but the Games section delves into word puzzle common ground and is primitive but addictive.

When played during a Scrabble game, this enterprising gadget is a quick go-to for solving that family breaking squabble – ‘is it definitely or definately?’ – but at the end of the day, people like to be traditional and people like to flick through pages of books and people like to earn their one-upmanship rather than getting a computer to do it for them. One for the hardcore Scrabble gamers then, but if you’re looking for a companion in your lazy quest for Scrabble domination – and you want augment your vocabulary a bit too – then this might just be for you.