Thanks to intern Errol Pierre-Louis for this review!

The Franklin USB Dictionary & Thesaurus is Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Franklin Thesaurus, along with an English buying guide, squeezed into a 256MB portable storage device. You just plug it into a USB port and let it do its thing.

The drive is billed as a portable reference guide, and it works fine in that capacity. It has a Quick Search function for definitions and synonyms, a spellchecker, and a grammer guide. But for me, the dictionary and thesaurus aren't even the most interesting features on this device.

What I really liked were the eBookstore and eNewsstand features.  The eBookstore feature works much like iTune's music store.  You load it up from the control panel and it list books by category, or you search for the one you want: Click on a title, read a summary, find the price, and even download a sample chapter. Then you can buy the book online, download it, and store it on your USB device.

The eNewsstands feature has a ton of online news sources that you can subscribe to for free. So if you missed the morning paper, just pop in the USB drive and scroll through today's headlines. If you live somewhere that's not so exotic, then you can check if the LA Times or Bangkok Post have anything exciting to report. Then check out album reviews from Slate Magazine, catch up on Anime news and new game reviews, and peruse the lastest from SciFi Wire. Every time you open your eNews library, your subscriptions automatically download updated content to your USB device, so you won't have to re-subscribe.  And of course, you can still use any room left over to store documents and images, as with most USB drives.

You can pick up a USB Dictionary and Thesaurus online for $49.95.