mobile phones

[Scorpion]

How can I find mobile phones that have both russian and english letters? for sms,....

any idea? any web sites?

I live in the US so all I can find are english only

[bjoer751]

Most mobile phones can be firmware-updated/changed to different language-sets. I have updated my Sony Ericsson K750i to EMEA5, which gives me russian, english and farsi (plus a few more).
Unfortunately there is no firmware which gives me swedish and russian - so I my T9 doesn't support any swedish words out-of-the-box anymore, I have to build my own wordlist.

This is the standards for SE-mobiles, how other companies group their languages - I don't know. But, check with the sales person at your local store, they should be able to load another firmware to your phone (most of the time, without any extra cost).

• AsianLatin1 [en/id/ms] English, Indonesian, Malay
• AsianLatin2 [en/tl/vi/th] English, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Thai
• AsianLatin3 [en/simpl_Chinese] English, Simplified Chinese
• EMEA1 [en/et/lv/lt/pl/ru/uk] English, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Ukranian
• EMEA2 [en/cs/hr/sr/sk/sl] English, Czech, Croatian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian
• EMEA3 [en/el/tr] English, Greek, Turkish
• EMEA4 [en/bg/hu/ro] English, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian
• EMEA5 [en/fr/ar/fa/he/ru] English, French, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Russian
• EMEA6 [en/fr/ar/fa/ru] English, French, Arabic, Farsi, Russian
• EU1 [en/fr/pt/es] English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
• EU2 [en/fr/de] English, French, German
• EU3 [en/fr/de/da/nl] English, Danish, Dutch, French, German
• EU4 [en/sv/no/fi] English, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
• EU5 [en/fr/de/it] English, French, German, Italian
• EU6 Vfe [en/nl/el/pl/es/sv] English, Dutch, Greek, Polish, Spanish, Swedish
• EU7 Vfe [en/fr/de/it/ar/hu/tr] English, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Hungarian, Turkish
• EU8 Tmobile [en/de/nl/cs] English, German, Dutch, Czech
• EU9 TIM Italy [en/fr/de/it] English, French, German, Italian
• US1 US en/Ca fr/Lat es] US English, French, Latin American Spanish
• US2 [US en/Lat es/Bra pt] US English, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese
• US3 Tmobile [US en Voicestream/Lat es] US English Voicestream, Latin American Spanish
• China1 CMCC [en/simpl Chinese CMCC] English, Simplified Chinese CMCC
• China2 [en/simpl_Chinese] English, Simplified Chinese
• HongKong [en/HongKong_Chinese] English, Hong Kong Chinese
• Taiwan [en/Taiwan_Chinese] English, Taiwan Chinese

[Michelangelo]

Or, when you get to the FSU, go by a phone store, such as UMC or KievStar in Ukraine, and they can update your phone to Russian for a small fee...

[Scorpion]

Actually I am talking about the 9-10 buttons on the phone that say
abc
efg
ijk

[bjoer751]

Do you want the actual, physical, keyboard to have cyrillic/russian characters? Then I think you'll have to buy a phone in Russia.
If you want the phone to be able to compose sms and messages in cyrillic/russian - then the firmware is all that needs to be changed.

Maybe, if you check with webshops which sell spare parts for mobile phones, you might find keyboards with different alphabets.

[Scorpion]

thanks

i think its best to buy it in kiev

[Pike]

Another glitch to consider.  As I understand it, many of the mobile phone systems in FSU will not handle the cyrillic alphabet, even tho that is the language base there.  Or, some will do it, but the cost to send SMS is higher than sending SMS using English letters.

So most of the people I know in FSU send SMS messages using English letters, even tho they are writting in Russian or Ukrainian.  They simply spell the Russian words as close as they can using English letters.

I am not an expert on this, but this is my understanding.  So something to check on before you spend too much time and effort looking for Russian keyboards for mobile phones.

[Michelangelo]

My wife advices that the easiest way is to take it to a service center in city center in kiev, and they can change the keys.  The bigger the shop, the better the service.

But you better take your gf or guide, if you don't speak Russian... :-)

For $10, you can change the program to Russian, and simply remember which key makes which cryallic symbol...

[bjoer751]

Another glitch to consider.  As I understand it, many of the mobile phone systems in FSU will not handle the cyrillic alphabet, even tho that is the language base there.  Or, some will do it, but the cost to send SMS is higher than sending SMS using English letters

All mobile networks support cyrillic, arabic, farsi or whatever you want to send. It's up to the sending and receiving phone to interpret.
Technically SMS is using a protocol called SS7, which allows single messages of 140 bytes. The protocol has been expanded to allow longer messages (in reality the longer messages are split to several 140 byte messages, and put together again by the receiving phone), and different character sets.
If you're only using US-ASCII, which is covered by 7-bit encoding, you can type 160 characters in each message.
If you're using swedish or another language which need the full ASCII-table, the message has to use 8-bit encoding, and therefore each message can only be 140 characters.
If you're using cyrillic, arabic, chinese, korean... the message has to be encoded with UCS-2 (Unicode) which uses 2 bytes per character - therefore each message is only 80 characters.
Also, there is some additional payload in each message - which has to fit into the 160 bytes - so in reality the numbers are:
7-bit: 153
8-bit: 134
UCS-2: 67

So, if you type a message in cyrillic which is 70 characters - you are billed for 2 SMS messages. That's what makes it more expensive.

[Scorpion]

My wife advices that the easiest way is to take it to a service center in city center in kiev, and they can change the keys.  The bigger the shop, the better the service.

But you better take your gf or guide, if you don't speak Russian... :-)

For $10, you can change the program to Russian, and simply remember which key makes which cryallic symbol...

Thanks
I know a place 2 minutes by foot from independence square on Kreschatic. Between the metro and independence sq
Maybe it will be more ecpensive but I think its better to just go there and buy a mobile phone rather than buying it from here

[Turboguy]

The only thought I would have about finding what you want in America is Ebay. You can find most anything there sooner or later.

[Donhollio]

  I got my phone in Dnepropetrovsk,took it back to Canada and bought another battery charger to fit the north americian plug style . I just remove my SIM card and put in my CDN SIM card. has worked great.
 So that's something you can think about too, a upgrade without the stupid contracts that the cell companies want you to lock into.
 My phone has about 10 languages,all FSU counties and of course English.

[Jack]

As the turbo mentioned, e-bay.  After deciding what model you want, how much you want to spend, go to e-bay, buy yourself a tri-band, un-locked, sim card telephone.  Once in Ukr or Ruski buy yourself a sim card and your ready to use phone. Come to America, buy new sim card, use phone.

If you use your Ukr or Ruski sim card once every six month the number stay's active. Not used in 6 months the number is deactivated.  What to do if you don't travel over every 6 month?  Leave sim card over with someone you know and have them to use card every four or five months.

[Daveman]

If you are just talking about sending SMS or Email from your phone in Cyrillic, it's pretty easy if you grab a pocketPC phone.

I have the Cingular 8525 WM5/phone.

Simply install a new software keyboard. I personally use Resco,  as it switches from EN to RU with a tap of the stylus for sending SMS or Email.  available at
http://www.resco.net/pocketpc/keyboard/default.asp

You can set it up for a wide variety of languages, and there are many available. 

I also use the large full screen keyboard from Spb software house:
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/fsk/index.html

Just install the Russian skin, and you have a full screen English/RUssian keyboard.

Now here's the really nifty thing if you go this route.  You can buy a translation program such as available from Promt and have a cut and paste translator right on your phone so your girl can send SMS easily in Russian, you can copy it over to the translator, read it, write a response, and voila!! Pretty nifty and quick communication in Russian :-) 

Pocket Promt 5.0
http://shop.e-promt.com/catalog.asp?lang=en&id=233&mode=full
another description here
http://www.smartlinkcorp.com/promt-translation-software/pocket-promt-english-russian-MT60101-info.html

The footnote for Pocket Promt mentions an incompatibility with Smartphone, so you need a pocket pc phone.

Anyway, this is my setup and I like it a helluva lot.

Dave

edited for some goofs in the links...

[wendaaaal]

If you use your Ukr or Ruski sim card once every six month the number stay's active. Not used in 6 months the number is deactivated.  What to do if you don't travel over every 6 month?  Leave sim card over with someone you know and have them to use card every four or five months.

Hello Jack,
 It's a year now with Kyivstar in Ukraine. Can't say about any of the others, but definitely a year with Kyivstar. Cheers, Wendell in A town