Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary (精選英漢漢英詞典)
Oxford University Press and The Commercial Press, 1999
ISBN: 7100025583

This was the first Chinese dictionary I owned. It is compact and easy to use. Although it uses simplified characters it usually shows the traditional characters in brackets where there is a difference.

This dictionary contains useful example sentences written in Chinese in the English-Chinese section. There is a radical index at the start of the Chinese-English section and characters are arranged by alphabetical order according to Hanyu Pinyin.

While it doesn't contain some of the more obscure characters and words, as a handy every day reference this dictionary is unbeatable. I think it is particularly suitable for students at lower levels and would make an excellent choice as a first dictionary.