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< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > General > Difference between i, a, and c phones & GSM 7-bit standard character set Bookmark topic

I have two related questions. First, what is the difference between i, a, and c phones (e.g., Z520i, Z520a, Z520c, where Z520a is sold in the Americas and Z520c in mainland China)?

Second, is there a way to easily identify phones that support the full (not a subset) of the GSM 7-bit standard character set? (These 127 characters include åäö, ÅÄÖ, øØ, and Greek letters.) I was told by a Sony-Ericsson tech guy that no phone sold in America supports åäö, only those sold in Sweden, but I don't believe that (what about the Norwegians then?).

What I suspect is that there is a connection between character sets supported, and the i, a, c designation. But I can't find any info on the i, a, c thing. Does anybody here know?
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Posted: 2005-12-27 23:02:07
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From the information I’ve managed to gather “i” is for something like region free model (if GSM then 900/1800/1900 triple band) “c” is for china and close by countries (again if GSM, standard triple band) “a” is for Americas (if GSM 850/1800/1900). So depending on the model number the installed languages may differ, but that is not the only thing which determines the language. I have also noticed that the “i” model (the most common model) is released with many languages and regional settings depending on the region they are sold.

Therefore even though “a” and “c” might have specific regional settings and languages; it is not the case with “i” model.

I gathered this info while browsing various sites, this may not be accurate, and may not be true for all SE models.


[ This Message was edited by: optiplex on 2005-12-28 02:09 ]
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Posted: 2005-12-28 02:05:06
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i -> international
a -> americas
c -> china
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Posted: 2005-12-28 03:14:58
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Is there a way to change your phone from "i" to "a", just by a firmware upgrade/replacement?

Cingular uses the 850 band predominately where I’m located, so my signal strength isn't as good as my z500a (work cell).

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Posted: 2005-12-28 15:14:04
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@ulfe: I doubt very much that a 7 bit character set will include all the characters you mention (accented a and o's + greek characters). There is simply not enough space with only 128 characters.
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Posted: 2005-12-28 16:13:15
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U can't change bands with upgrading soft or anything else.It's another technology. Don't know about the 7 bit, but mine is 'i' and has all the characters (greek, cyrilic, nordic). This message was posted from a WAP device
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Posted: 2005-12-28 17:59:29
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Quote:
On 2005-12-28 17:59:29, 701 wrote:
U can't change bands with upgrading soft or anything else.It's another technology. Don't know about the 7 bit, but mine is 'i' and has all the characters (greek, cyrilic, nordic).



This message was posted from a WAP device

OK, but I guess you can't use all the characters in one single message. You either use greek or cyrillic or nordic, but not the three together. True?
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Posted: 2005-12-28 18:28:43
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Quote:
On 2005-12-28 15:14:04, shoei wrote:
Is there a way to change your phone from "i" to "a", just by a firmware upgrade/replacement?

Cingular uses the 850 band predominately where I’m located, so my signal strength isn't as good as my z500a (work cell).




no it's a hardware requirement that the phone does not have
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Posted: 2005-12-29 00:09:28
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That just drives me crazy....when i was on AT&T i had no problems....damn Cingular. SE needs to start making highend phones for the states!
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Posted: 2005-12-29 04:33:23
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I can use all the letters in a single sms.I'll show u right now: ïîíõößÀ´¸ÈÆÉ¿»ýôþ . If u can't see some of them it might be cuz Esato doesn't support 'em. This message was posted from a WAP device
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Posted: 2005-12-29 08:00:50
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