Smartphone from the US or Europe able to write Chinese SMS?

[tibolts]

I'm looking for a smartphone and want be able to send & write SMS in Chinese. I was looking for a Treo 650 lately in Zhonguancun (Beijing) but after they installed some pinyin programm to write SMS it didn't worked at all. The display was freezing after I pressed 2 buttons... After 5 attemps I left the shop...
The price with 2650 RMB was ok and they offered me one year warranty (*haha*) but I don't know if the problem was the phone or the software?
Anybody of you guys can write SMS in Chinese with a chinese treo 650?

I would love to use a German or USA Phone but the Palm-Support told me I'm not able to write SMS in Chinese with the non-chinese versions.

How does it work with Windows Mobile? Can I just activate or install some kind of language package like it works with Windows XP?

Any recommendations for a Smartphone? What are you using? What about the Treo 600? ...I guess good enough for me but can I write SMS in Chinese with it?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Shadowdh]

Not sure how it works with a smart phone but my L7 can send and receive sms in Hanzi... I had to install the relevant language pack though and then enable it... but works like a dream... so you might have to find a chinese language pack to install on your phone... also they might not have installed it correctly at the shop which is why it froze...

 

[goulniky]

I haven't tested sending SMS in Chinese. I had a BlackBerry during my trip to China last summer and that wasn't an option. My PDA was a PalmOS, I just switched to a WM5 smartphone last week, with OS in English but I'm in Europe now. At the very least what you'll need is a Chinese IME (input method), very robust CJKOS on Palm, various ones available on WM5 but none very stable or satisfactory it seems.
As to the sending of SMS proper, I haven't the faintest idea what protocol / charset they use. Re: the Treo 600, I'd say a resolution of 160x160 is really poor for Chinese chars, my wife had one and I wasn't impressed. Going for a WM5 smartphone from the UX50, I downgraded from 480x320 to 320x240 and that's not too bad, no problem with Pleco (which runs a lot faster too).

 

[Jim]

The Treo 650 with CJKOS installed works fine for SMSs in Chinese. You can even include both Chinese and English in the same message. Most of the Treo 650s sold in Beijing, other than the CECT branded ones, come from Hong Kong and CJKOS should be on the included CD.

The Hong Kong phones are gray market. CECT branded phones are the ones officially available in China. They have CJKOS included in ROM instead of added from a CD.

 

[batoje]

Chinese on Windows Devices

My experience with CE star on Windows Mobile 5 is not good. The support is very poor (although I finally got a reply to many emails, I ended up just getting the run around).
The system is very buggy and I feel it was a waste of money. I don't even use the IE's in the program because they are so buggy. There are free programs out there that enable you to read Chinese characters. Imputing them on the Pocket PC doesn't seem to have a stable option unless you are willing to dive into the full blow Chinese version of Pocket PC.

 

[sfrrr]

I've posted a few times about Chinese input programs, including CE-Star. The short of it is that if you can get them installed correctly, they work like a dream. If something goes wrong, forget about help from Mobem. I think Rasir Dex, the owner (or former owner, what do I know?) must have both a day job and a night job, and that he's jobbed out customer support to a Russian group that doesn't speak Chinese. Monster Chinese has much more eager and helpful customer and technical support, but it's difficult to figure out which parts of the program you need to install. If you experiment with various different Chinese IMEs, be sure to do a hard reset after uninstalling a previous CIME app. No matter how careful you are, every input method editor leaves behind scraps and pieces that, down the line, may cause mysterious problems with other apps.

If you, like me, need to read and write articles, email and text messages on your Windows Mobile gadget, you are, IMO, stuck with either Monster or CE-Star. In a way, odd IMEs are the price we pay for being able to carry our Chinese references and productivity apps in our pockets.

Sandra