Remember the days when the idea of a universal translator was only found in science fiction? Thanks to the power of mobile computing, you now carry a universal translator with you at all times- all you need is an app like today’s reviewed app, Communilator, and you can translate any text into dozens of languages wherever you are- even as simply as taking a photo of the text!
Developer’s Description:
Communilator Free™ is the world’s most advanced mobile phone language translation application. Capable of recognizing and translating foreign text (books, newspapers, menus, etc.) in 44 languages captured with the mobile phone camera; of delivering translations in over 3,000 language-pairs; of providing Super High-Quality (SHQ) Speech for translations in 21 foreign languages; of bilingual communications through SMS and email; and of seamless integration with Google Voice Recognition facility for source language input.
| Category | Score | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Does it Fulfill its Purpose? | 17 | Communilator is a simple translation app- pick the input language on the left, pick the output language on the right, and enter the text at the bottom. There’s also a tab for translations from pictures, and another for translating by taking a picture within the app. Once you have your translation, it is saved to the history, and can be added to a favorites section. There are options to copy, share, text, or hear it. Communilator includes a number of features, but there are a few more that might make the app a little more versatile, such as the ability to change the input or output language in the “favorites” section and simpler access to the text-to-speech feature. |
| Does it Look Good? | 19 | Communilator looks great. Having the flags for the languages looks very nice, and the theme of the app fits it well. Everything flows together nicely and looks very good. |
| Does it Run Well? | 13 | Communilator runs around 2MB, with no ability to install to SD. Most of its permissions fit with its purpose, such as the ability to use internet, wifi, photos, SD, and send text messages. Perhaps the biggest issue that I encountered was that the photo translation is not very versatile. I ran a few trials, and the camera had to be perfectly aligned to be able to recognize it. Multiple trials that weren’t perfectly aligned only gave me gibberish. I also ran into a bug where if you allow your device to auto-lock while it is translating a picture taken from within the app, the picture is discarded and you have to start over. In addition, as many of the functions were performed over the internet, I encountered some instability at times- such as with the text-to-speech functions, which often had a lengthy delay and occasionally failed to play. |
| Is it Easy to Use? | 20 | Communilator utilizes a very simple, easy-to-understand interface. Almost everything is immediately self-explanatory, and everything that isn’t is explained in a very thorough and helpful guide. |
| Is This App Useful to Everybody? | 17 | As our world gets more and more culturally diverse, a universal translator is the kind of app many people might need at some point or another- and the ability to translate text by simply taking a photo is extremely neat. |
| Overall Score | 86 | Communilator is the kind of app that is extremely useful on a smartphone. While there are a few key features missing, the idea is so useful that Communilator is definitely an app worth picking up. It has a free version with a limited number of photo translations and text output. |
Reviewed Version: 1.03 PRO
| Direct market access: |