• expensive
• hard to get used to
• buggy
• often slow
• aimed at those who manage large translation projects rather than individual translators.

I can offer no opinion of my own, other than not being surprised, but I shall certainly be in no hurry to upgrade.

In fact so far I have not seen one single comment to the effect that it would have any value at all for me. Anybody want to make one here?

But why did I choose, and why do I still use, Trados, when there are several other systems out there with good reputations? One reason only: it is the industry standard. Only that. Otherwise the price, along with what is politely known as the “aggressive upgrade policy” (i.e. pay a lot more again or find yourself out on a limb with no support) would have put me off long ago.

And as for usability – forget it! Most of the features of the version I use now remain a mystery to me, as they would take days and days to understand and come to terms with. The manuals are obscure, the functions unclearly named; in fact after more than a year I still haven’t managed to persuade the new equivalents to functions – functions that I used to find helpful – to work.

But we must hand it to the producers, SDL. Cleverly they have turned their own failing into a money-spinner. Because their software is so counter-intuitive, they offer (expensive) training courses, at the end of which we can dig into our bank-balances and be “certified” as competent to use the damned thing! So 1/10 for usability, but 10/10 for chutzpah!

I really should follow my own prompting here and look into a more reasonable alternative.