Windows 8 App review: Dictionary.com

     Overview

     Every good writer needs a very good dictionary. This is my personal recommendation over the middling competition. It has been available since the Consumer Preview, and little has changed except a few bug fixes. It does the job well, but is not the most feature packed app in the store. Also the design is very ho-hum. It does have "articles" called "The Hot Word" which talks about a word or once in a while a language that may seem a bit controversial or interesting. I really like the live tile which has a Word of the day which if you click the tile, go into the app, and click on the word it tells you what it means. The app start up times are slower than average and there is some noticeable lag inside of the app.

     Functionality

     The app may be extremely useful, but performance is very modest if not below average. The app itself is very light at 4.32 MB which should turn out to be very zippy. Sadly it was below expectations with only a word document open. It takes around 4-8 seconds to load almost at the 66MB Star Chart app. The search function is also slow and sometimes will not work if the dictionary app is not open. Still the search works great, and when you search for a word it shows a list of closely spelled words. It does what it advertises well even if a bit slow on some older hardware. I really loved the website and students would find this very functional given the snapped view mode. I love the app and I think you will too.

     Conclusion

     I loved the website and no longer visit it thanks to the Dictionary.com app! I really love everything about it except the lack of design. 

Rating// 4.5 out of 5