This service is another way in the chat app, which presents a two-way conversation system, on one side your language and on the other side your partner’s language, reverse-down. This setup has no buttons: each speaker simply speaks in a microphone on both sides of the hand, and a translation is both played and displayed in the text on the edge of the screen. It is the same concept as a one-click translation, but is more free from hands.
The other major feature is a photo-based translation app that works in the same way as you think it should be by snatching the picture of the text in a foreign language. The unit supports 40 languages, with several dialects, and claims support for “93+ accents”. Any of those languages can be translated into another. If you are online, it is connected through Wi-Fi or through cellular network.
But T1’s killer feature is that you can download offline language packs, which when you bends on the AI-operated CPU of the unit to translate the text No are linked. The device supports 31 offline language pairs, but note that it is not the same as 31 languages. The Korean-to-Thai translation is supported, as Korean-from-Russian, but unless you are online, you cannot translate Thai into Russian. For English, only 10 language pairs are supported, and each combination you use must be downloaded on the device in advance, when you have a connection.
Photograph: Chris Tap
Translations are sharp – if it is not enough in 0.2 seconds that Timecal claims – and accuracy was as good as I tested it against any standard translator. This was a more easy way to translate audio than using Google translation (et al.) On smartphones, although the Google method is well understood globally, reduces that benefit.
I saw no real difference in quality or speed between online and offline translations in a series of language tests, and many of my text-based translations turned into similar results (perhaps suspectedly) that I got with Google translation. The sounded translations are not correct, as they never occur with these devices, but they meet about 90 percent of accuracy that promises to timetal. Be sure to run an operating system update (you will not be motivated to do so; The option is buried in the “Settings” menu) to make the handoff more comfortable between offline and online mode.
Screen crisis
The only major negative screen screen of the device is the screen, with a 540 x 1080-pixel resolution is a SAD, making it difficult to capture too much to translate at a time with an 8-megapixel camera. While I can easily take a picture of a full screen of the text with my cell phone for translation, T1 was able to purses only a few rows at a time due to its limited resolution. When I zoomed, the results were usually wildly wrong or completely illegal. There was a need to get closer to the text to get a proper translation with the camera of T1.
Photograph: Chris Mul
