Mobile Phones w/ Support for Chinese Characters?

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."

Comments

Nokia Series 90

[Fizzl]

..Will have atleast Chinese support. Keep your eyes focused at the web pages.

Java is right out...

[Muad'Dave]

...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

[tod_miller]

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

[Saiai Hakutyoutani]

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

[beswicks]

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.

Re:Loads of issues

[Saiai Hakutyoutani]

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 creating an input method and a simple e-mail client.

Re:Loads of issues

[antifoidulus]

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.

The problem is your network

[beswicks]

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.

Oh and forget using Verizon with anywhere else

[gorim]

Verizon is standard CDMA and no Japanese phones use that. In fact, Japanese phones don't use anything used elsewhere in the world, except the now brand-new W-CDMA standard. Cellphone manufacturers are just now making tri-band dual-standard phones that roam between the newer W-CDMA networks in japan (and rolling out elsewhere in the world) and the older GSM service.

GSM service in the United States exists with Cingular, T-Mobile, and the soon tobe defunct ATT. Oddly enough, Vodafone owns a chunk of Verizon, but the CDMA standard isn't used by Vodafone anywhere else in the world, everything else is GSM. I think Vodafone really wanted ATT Wireless to expand their US presence in a compatible way but they have that Verizon boat anchor that probably kept them from making a bid.

Since I live in Japan now, I have had to ramp up on how cell phones work. They are definitely cooler here.

Therre is *NO* GSM in Japan

[gorim]

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.

Ob King of the Hill quote

[HungWeiLo]

"Are you Chinese or Japanese?"

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

"So are you Chinese or Japanese?"