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Communications Portables Hardware

Mobile Phones w/ Support for Chinese Characters? 68

Posted by Cliff from the multilingual dept.
antifoidulus asks: "I am learning both Chinese and Japanese(well, I can converse in Japanese, but I can only say that I want to eat stuff in Chinese!) and I was curious if there were any phones available in the US which I can use to read/write Chinese/Japanese characters. I frequently communicate with friends in Japan, and I would like be able to send Japanese mail on my phone. I have a Japanese phone, but it seems Verizon says that it will not work on their network. I would prefer to have something that I can upload Java programs to, so I can customize my language practice."
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Mobile Phones w/ Support for Chinese Characters? More

Mobile Phones w/ Support for Chinese Characters?

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  • Nokia Series 90 (Score:2, Informative)

    by Fizzl ( 209397 )
    ..Will have atleast Chinese support. Keep your eyes focused at the web [nokia.com] pages [nokia.com].
    • http://www.gst.com.sg/

      Seriously. Very similar to the Treo in functionality (I know, I have the Z3, a colleague has the Treo). Runs PalmOS and has chinese character support natively, without needing to install anything. The handwriting recognition is also an advantage in inputting the characters.

      Very nice, VERY small, very capable phone.

  • Java is right out... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Muad'Dave ( 255648 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @07:52AM (#10066494) Homepage

    ...on Verizon phones if you intend to download them across their network. They only support Brew applications, and the SDK is like $1500. Verizon only allows App downloads from their for-pay Get It Now service. (You can use a cable and gagin to load apps directly into the phone). There is talk of a Brew JRE, but I haven't seen it and I'd guess it'd be too big and too slow.

    I'm going to re-research carriers when my current contract is up - I want my Java phone!

  • Speaking Chinese (Score:5, Funny)

    by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @07:53AM (#10066496) Journal
    but I can only say that I want to eat stuff in Chinese!

    twentyseven with fortythree, is thirtysix spicey?, ok a side of twelve, and a can of coke.

    Sorry.

  • Loads of issues (Score:4, Informative)

    by Saiai Hakutyoutani ( 599875 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @07:57AM (#10066509)
    Support for Chinese characters isn't actually one package that can be supported as such. First of all, you need fonts: Traditional fonts, simplified, Korean and Japanese fonts. Then you need support for encodings, like GB18030, ISO-2022-JP, ISO-2022-KR, Unicode, etc. And last but not least you need input methods, and Asian input methods are often rather complex.

    Since at least Japanese users often prefer to send e-mail over their phones rather than text messages, it would be feasible to make a Java e-mail app that supported a few input methods and encoding conversions, as well as a rendering engine for Asian characters. However, I wouldn't hold my breath. It's a good thing if Nokia's trying to address this.

    • Re:Loads of issues (Score:5, Interesting)

      by beswicks ( 584636 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @08:11AM (#10066576)
      While this is true, there are PLENTY of phones that can do japanise / chinese character encoding.

      The basic way to so it, with only the ~12 buttons or so on a mobile phone, is to mark the keys with the different types of strokes that make up the chacters. Chinese charaters (and therfore at least some of japanise, but i don't know how to write 'any' japanise) are written in a particular order from a finite set of strokes, so it you know how to write chineese properly (i.e. know the stroke order rules not just the 'pretty pictures') this system is VERY usable.

      In fact I can use a chineese phone to type better than i can use a full keyboard, because the system makes more sense to me.

      Also for the chineese, getting a chineese font ain't that hard, and if your using java to build and app, then its unicode anyway.

      If you could be bothered to code an app, all you'd need is a java phone, and a marker to add the stokes to the keys.
      • Well, Japanese and Korean at least necessitate either romanized input, or input with a uniquely Japanese layout. I'm guessing that for an English-speaking user, romanized input is just as well.

        It's interesting how Java uses Unicode internally, though... The encoding conversion necessary to send the e-mails off to an Asian phone might not be that hard, and if the current Java-capable phones (like the Nokia 3510i) are already capable of correctly rendering Asian text, then it's more or less just a matter of
        • I have never seen a japaniese phone, but, I don't see why japanise companies would do the research into an input system that is purley based on the basic concepts of how you write chinese chars, ie no pin-yin or other type some letters and i'll work out the char you ment, and not bother to do so for the much larger japanise markets. I mean japanise cangie (that is soo wrong spelled) is chinese anyway, so why would it be a problem, you just need to add the 'simpler' japaniese characters.

          As for unicode in Ja

          • Re:Loads of issues (Score:5, Informative)

            by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @08:32AM (#10066719) Homepage Journal
            Well both Japanese and Korean have phonetic characters in addition to the Chinese characters. These phonetic characters are required to conjugate Japanese verbs, for use as sentence particles etc, as well as they can be used instead of the kanji. When Japanese people use their cell phones, they input the phonetic characters directly(There are about 50 of these phonetic symbols, organised into 10 groups by initial consonant, and each group has 5 vowels in it, so it's quite easy, if a bit slow, to enter them on a phone).
            I'm not sure exactly how Korean works, the Hangul I know is phonetic, but they can also use Chinese characters. Though, from what I understand, the Chinese characters are usually for show(when writing the proper names of people or places etc) and serve very little grammatical function in day to day writing anymore, but I could be wrong.

            • That's right. The basic Japanese phonetic alphabet is called hiragana. They actually have another one called katakana, which is used for describing "foreign" things like the menu at McDonalds. A lot of the time when you see Japanese writing on CD covers or t-shirts (I think a recent Madonna, for example) it's in this alphabet.

              Anyways, more on-topic, you said that it's "quite easy, if a bit slow, to enter them on the phone". Having owned a cell phone in Japan for the past year, I have to disagree about the

              • I know that, if you see the subject, I had a japanese phone, but I just tried to simplify it for someone who doesn't know much about it.....

              • The young kids are pretty quick with those keypads. But they tend to keep a list of standard phrases handy, as well, which shortens typing considerably when they mostly speak in idiom.

                My wife prefers my iBook to her cell phone.

                Now, if we wanted to do this sort of thing with English on a regular keyboard, we would have an input filter, so that when you had typed two or three keys and the list of likely candidates was narrowed down a bit, a menu of candidates would pop up. I think several word processors

          • I know how the encoding is handled, I'm more worried about the actual rendering. Can the Java virtual machines on phones with limited memory render Asian fonts?

            As for the Japanese input methods, they need to use the Japanese kana alphabets, not kanji, since you can't write Japanese using kanji alone.

  • The problem is your network (Score:5, Informative)

    by beswicks ( 584636 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @08:17AM (#10066600)
    I cannot speak for the US, but in the UK, this is REALLY easy.

    All you need to do is find out the requirements for your network, and then buy a phone from hong kong, that has chineese input, and works with you carriers network.

    Thats what my friends do, and they can then send each other SMS, over the UK networks, in chinese, using the 12 key input system i described in another post, and it 'just works'(tm).

    So my recomendation would be find a phone from hong kong that works with a US network, and buy the phone and switch networks, you can even use the phone in 'english' and have the chinese as a possible option.

    If you want an exact recomendation, look at Motorola, the one with the circular display, where the key guard 'spins' around the display to show the keys. The chinese ones have the 'stokes' written on the number keys, so they are kinda obvious.

    Hope this helps.
    • That's what you get for living in a free country.
    • they can then send each other SMS, over the UK networks, in chinese, using the 12 key input system
      They'd have to have... how many really tiny ideograms printed on each key, along with 3-4 letters and a digit? (-:
      • More likely it would work he same way most word processors work in Japan. You type in romaji (Japanese spelled out phoenetically in english) (or katakana, which would only need 4-5 letters per key) and the program makes predictive guesses about which char you want. Much like phones work for typing ahead english words.

        • This is not true of most phones in Hong Kong, because in Hong Kong, they speak Cantonese. There is no official romanization system for Cantonese.

          On the mainland, Hanyu Pinyin is the standard romanization system for Mandarin and all phones support pinyin-based input systems. I've owned several Nokias and they all also do a 5-stroke based system, which I guess could be useful if you run into a character you don't know, but how often does that happen.

          In Taiwan I guess they might use Wade Giles, ZhuYin, or
      • The sytem described in the other post mentioned was one using the stokes that make up each character.
      • Well, there is also the Nokia 3108 [nokia-asia.com], which uses a rather nifty stylus entry system. I have one (imported from Hong Kong), and it works surprisingly well for both Chinese and English text entry. Alas, it doesn't have many of the obscure characters, but what can you expect? It's only a cellphone...

        Oh, yes, and it supports Java, and MMS, and all that jazz. I don't know what the importing situation is in the US, but it shouldn't be too difficult to track down...
      • My Chinese phone requires Pin Yin input, that is, you type in the letters that spell the character phonetically, and the phone displays the availible characters that can be represented by that sound. Chinese people have no problem with it, myself, I use it on occasion to type in place names, and it's not difficult.
  • Check out this link to vodafone Japan. Historically there is no compatibility between Japanese and outside Japan cell networks, but some very new and very cool phones just came out. Read this link. Many Japanese phones are multilingual they just don't work with GSM and other networks, but this one does. Your jaw will drop :)

    http://www.vodafone.jp/english/service/vgs/produ ct /v801.html

  • e28 (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    www.e28.com -- cool phone. does everything.
  • You need to figure out what the phone standard is in Japan - I think it's GSM but don't quote me on that. Then you need to talk to AT&T Wireless - they are the biggest company in the US supporting GSM.
    • iMode is prevalent in Japan, not GSM. FYI.

      -psy
      • You have to buy a Japanese phone that can also dual-mode with GSM networks.

        Japan has a variety of 2.5 and 3G cellular networks. Long before the rest of the world, thus why so little compatibility.

        But that all is changing with W-CDMA (not to be confused with plain old CDMA from the USA). Tri-band dual-mode phones that do W-CDMA and GSM are coming out that can be used globally *including* in Japan.
  • The Treo 600 is a palm-based phone, so you should be able to install CJK OS onto it. Caveat: I haven't tried this.
  • OMG-if you want a cheap solution...

    T-Mobile makes the sidekick,
    You can make sidekick turn Japanese,
    Text msg would work!

  • You need a tri-band GSM phone produced for the Asian market. Chances are, you will have to order it over the internet.

    Fortunately, if you get a service provider in the US that has GSM service, you should get a SIM card which can be put into any GSM phone in the world.

    You need tri-band because the US operates on a funny frequency (ie. different than Europe and Asia -- or the whole Asian landmass if you think of it that way).

    Remember also, that the Chinese cellphone market is the largest in the

  • Ob King of the Hill quote (Score:3, Funny)

    by HungWeiLo ( 250320 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2004 @05:42PM (#10072686)
    "Are you Chinese or Japanese?"

    "Actually, I come from a small Southeast Asian country called Laos."

    "So are you Chinese or Japanese?"
    • Actually, I come from a small Southeast Asian country called Laos."


      "So are you Chinese or Japanese?"


      Doesn't look Japanese to me. Looks Laosian!

  • The Hiptop [danger.com] displays Japanese and Chinese fine, and if you become a developer you can install a Japanese dictionary [skdr.net], or use one online [frotz.net] in its browser.

  • I was talking with a guy with one of the keitai companies a couple of months back and he said I would have to connect long distance with their network to use their phone in the US.

    8-*

  • good luck finding a phone that supports java to work with verizon, all of there phones are brew based.

  • Treo (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Treo would probably be your best bet, as PalmOS can work in Japanese. Support for Japanese is possible via J-OS [nifty.com] or CJKOS [dyts.com]. With CJKOS, you should be able to use Chinese as well as Japanese (and Korean, if you need). I have used J-OS on my Palm once upon a time, and it worked OK. Many Japanese Palm users have been using it for a while to send e-mails from their PalmOS PDAs, so it should have no problem sending e-mail in Japanese to other devices (including phones).
    Your Japanese phone will NEVER work in the
    • As I linked in an earlier comment, Vodafone Japan sells phones with that are dual-mode and tri-band that work both with their local Japanese W-CDMA network and worldwide GSM networks. These are new and advanced phones that have the same 3G capabilities as their Japan-only counterparts. They are also multi-lingual.

      As such, a TREO would only be useful outside Japan, and have not nearly the same capabilities as a dedicated 3G phone.

  • Does anyone know of a phone available in the U.S. which can handle the Cyrillic character set? I'm planning on going to Russia next year with my Church, and I'm in the process of learning to speak, read, and write Russian. I'm looking for ways I can practice in everyday life.

    • Ironically, my Japanese phone also supported cryillic. I don't think it was to actually use it(the input method was clunky), but to do physics. It had double integral signs, set theory symbols, and even a line integral. Nothing beats calculus on the train!
  • The Nokia 6108 [nokia.com.au] has a stylus that allows you to input Chinese characters simply by writing them. I suppose there should be a Chinese/Japanese capable version of this phone.

    I actually own this phone, and it's pretty useful, although I never write messages in Chinese, it's still fun to play with.
  • The Sony-Ericsson K700i can do Chinese input.
    Mine was bought in Hong Kong, so you may need to get the store to install the Hong Kong firmware (R2A041 prgCXC 125882_HONG_KONG_C). Oh, and yes it can do English too.
    You use only 8 keys (6 numbers, left, right) to enter the characters, as it uses T9 predictive texting. Basically you enter the strokes as you would write them.
    • Unless he's learning Cantonese, or he's Taiwanese and has political issues with Pinyin, it's probably easier for him to get mainland chinese or singaporean firmware. Entering by stroke is a pain in the butt.

      Most pinyin capable phones can enter by stroke in the way you describe, but why on earth would you want to?
  • Not sure will this help.
    It's pretty simple over here. Just grab a mobilephone that can display and enter chinese chars and off you go.
    For chinese chars input, I mostly use T9 PinYing with my Siemens C35i (yeah, it's old but functioning, i m not those kind of swithcing phone every few months).
  • I don't know if vodaphone has anything available in the US, but the kana and kanji on my vodaphone (here in japan) is great...

    one idea might be to look into who makes the phones in japan or china, and find a model that can be used with a US service provider, and just have the model shipped to you... my phone (with video capture, still camera, english, kana, kanji, and texting, cost 1 yen; so price shouldnt be an issue)

    alternatively, since texting and email are so popular here, you may not need a phone..
  • Almost any GSM phone will have a version of the firmware with Chinese support, as almost all GSM phones were released in China/Hong Kong at one point. You may need to convince someone at your telco to flash your phone with the equivalent models firmware from asia... which they may or may not do... (Fido in Canada does it if you can convince the technician that you need it) or if you want to do it yourself, you can usually buy a datacable of some sort and get the software yoruself, via always google/ebay.
  • From your post it sounds like you are not actually in China, but rather someplace like the US. If US is the case, it might be easier/cheaper for you to get a phone and activate it here, then flash the language firmware. I've done this with a t610 on t-mobile. The t610 was free after rebates. At&t and cingular also have GSM phones, but they use the stupid 850 MHz band, and most of their "world" phones are actually versions of the normal 900/1800/1900 phones with 900 replaced by 850, so they don't wor

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