So I'm looking to purchase an Android smartphone for a Taiwanese friend as a pressie. Problem is none of the phones I've seen or used in Aus actually come with East Asian languages — e.g no Traditional Chinese or Japanese
Anyone here know of any phone models that have additional languages asides from English?
Preferably one that's available as unlocked or prepaid. Nothing too expensive.
My Garmin Nuviphone only has English selectable.
I have the Garmin A50 (Optus) and Huawei Ideos (generic), Both don't have chinese selectable as it's locale. I thought the Huawei would have it since it's a Shenzhen company…
Easiest way to confirm what I said is to visit any t-life shops and try on the working demos. :-)
OS-localisation is different from the ability to display East-Asian character sets.
A Chinese localised Android phone would have all menu options displayed in Chinese, which might not be desirable if the phone is intended to be used here by a Chinese :) On the other hand, Android has no problem displaying East-Asian character sets on web pages and in all applications. You can also download Chinese input system from Android Market that allows you to type Chinese.
A Chinese localised Android phone would have all menu options displayed in Chinese,
which might not be desirable if the phone is intended to be used here by a Chinese
The localisation is what I'm after. I know the text input etc. can be simply installed using Android Market applications, but what I actually need is the phone's user interface to be in Mandarin,
I might have to resort to using eBay and buying a phone from Hong Kong.
Not sure if this would work, but I would think that you can get a localised Chinese firmware for the A50 by downloading the Taiwan firmware update.
But trying to source an A50 would be challenging. I heard they're pretty much sold out everywhere. :)
Hmm, never thought about that.
I don't want to try it on mine though, I'm afraid I'll brick the darn thing, and I've already customised it to my liking. Don't want to do it all again :S
Looks like I'll just wait until some HTC's drop in price and then get a low end one. They seem to have a better modding community behind it so it might be easier to get a custom ROM loaded with chinese support.
Yes in this case I would probably go with what pauly said — do a firmware upgrade. HTC is a Taiwanese brand, and when I went there a few weeks ago there were heaps of Android phones on the market (and seems to be more common than iPhone from what I've seen) — so should be possible obtaining a Chinese firmware.
Or maybe just buy from online shop there. I wonder whether there's any service like Shipito but shipping from East Asia countries.
HTC's Legend is quite cheap now isnt it. Wildfire too! ^^
I'm quite surprised you cant flash the firmware. not possible?
So far I know HTC legend and HTC wildfire comes with simplified and traditional Chinese. Which android phone (which carrier) did you get non-Chinese android from? All HTC has Chinese bc it is Taiwanese based products