Now you can play Scrabble, one of the most popular and beloved word games, on your Palm OS device! Designed to play like the board game, you select tiles using drag-and-drop functioning. This version also offers an intuitive interface, a built-in Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary, and automatic scoring for every game. It even saves partially completed games that can be continued at a later time.

Practice your Scrabble skills against the automated computer opponent; choose from beginner, novice, intermediate, or expert levels. Or, play against up to three opponents using just one device. The program even hides your tile rack automatically. You can also play against others using multiple Palm OS devices with infrared (IR) beaming. This lets you study your tiles while your opponents take their turn, just like playing the board game.

Play in either Friendly or Tournament mode. Friendly mode plays like a casual, low-stakes Scrabble game: no stress, no tension; you can accept or reject entries outside the rules and use the clever Suggest Move option. Tournament mode, however, is a different beast. It plays by the classic rules, includes challenges, and even checks words against the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary.

User Reviews about HANDMARK Scrabble for Windows & Palm

Handmark has not updated this to the new dictionary and when asked said it has no plans to do so. Serious club and tournament players will also be annoyed that it uses the official dictionary and not the club/tournament word list. On the other hand, with top-level play chosen, using a Windows PDA, it plays low expert-level Scrabble at good speed, it gives hints, and it includes the definitions: if you're carrying a PDA anyway, there's no need to carry the official dictionary (except of course for new and "dirty" words). I do wish there were a new version. -- Not bad, but...

Very enjoyable, so long as you understand that the computer opponent plays differently than a typical human opponent. Even when you set the opponent's level to "Novice", it will frequently come up with obscure words like "xu", "jiao", "tyee" or "aioli". It's also better that most casual players at finding places to create multi-word combinations. It knows that a well-placed 2- or 3-letter word will often score higher than a larger word somewhere else. But it's still beatable and fun, and it will probably help make you a better player. -- The computer makes an interesting opponent

I think this game is great and the implementation on PalmOS PDA is fantastic. Not only is the color usage great, but fitting everything onto a small pixel screen is amazing. I never feel that it is too small, though.

My only complaint is the dictionary. It does not use OWL (Official Tournament and Club Word List) but some version of OSW (Official Scrabble Words) or OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary), the combination of which is usually called SOWPODS. Grrrr. So, on some words that I know are words accepted in professional play, I end up hitting "accept word" after I get the popup saying it is not a word. [edit: Turns out to be OSPD, which is still quite limiting]

The latest version has the definitions, but I don't care for that. Many people will, though, and it is a great feature. I either know the definition or don't care, but I do not have the memory space in my PDA with all my other applications. Perhaps when I upgrade my PDA I will add in the defintions.

Complaints aside, this is a great implementation of a great game and have it on my PDA. You should, too. Definitely a five-star game. -- Great, but not OWL