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Hi lads.....

I'm a new P800 owner- just bought my P800 3 days ago. I've got this problem though..... my phone seems to be Chinese!!

I'm in Malaysia so Chinese language options are common but I can't seem to get rid of it! I've even Master Reset-ed the phone, wiping out everything but as soon as it started up again I got a little chinese language wizard (couldn't understand a word) which then shut down the phone again after I had tapped whatever button was offered to me. When I start it up again it starts up in English, giving me the setup wizard (in English) letting me set location and date.

Ok- so everything on the phone appears to be english and sure i can use it but there is something I can't seem to get rid of- the phone seems to assume chinese characters when I try to input text from the touchscreen. I go to control panels and look at "Language Options" and find UK English and Simplified Chinese as the only options. I try to delte Simplified Chinese and it seems to accept the instruction but when I select "Language Options" again I still see Simplified Chinese present.

Worse, when I look at the "Text Input" option I see that the default text entry option is "Chinese Keyboard" and the alternative is "Chinese Handwriting"- which explains my difficulty in using Jot or Graffiti to enter english text. I tap on the pulldown menu and the ONLY option on either tab is Chinese.

I'm not racist... heck I AM Chinese..... but I'd like to communicate with my phone in English please. Hpw do I get rid of all this Chinese-ness on my phone. I only want UK English in there and nothing else.

Is there a reinstall OS option? If this was a Windows PC I'd have reformatted the HDD by now.....

HELP!!!!

Cheers

DIRAVI
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Posted: 2004-11-09 18:42:41
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did you purchase a P800 or a P802? if you remove the battery, it should indicate it on the sticker.

if it's a P802, then there probably isn't anything you can do about it since it's the model designed for the chinese market so the language is most likely hard coded into the OS.
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Posted: 2004-11-09 18:54:34
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No man.... it's a P800- says so on the lil sticker under the battery.

One would have thought that the "master reset" thing would have sorted it out. On the ole Treo there was a hard reset procedure which wiped EVERYTHING except what was on ROM.

Is there a P800 equivalent? Heck... even if it IS hardcoded into the OS I don't mind the thing sitting there- like I have Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew and a whole bunch of other stuff on my Mac- I just want the english up front and as the language I use to input text.

Sheesh..... any other ideas?

DIRAVI
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Posted: 2004-11-09 21:41:57
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There are two ways you can change the text input (handwriting recognition) from Chinese to English. When in a text input mode (SMS, MMS, Email, Jotter etc.), notice that there is a little black triangle (used to indicate where lower/upper case & numerics can be drawn) on the right hand side is in the upper-half of the screen. With your stylus, draw a short/quick "upwards" stroke. The triangle should shift to the centre of the screen, and you should now be in English mode.

Alternatively, again whilst in a text input mode, tap the chinese character in the bottom left-hand corner of screen. The character should change, the triangle should move from the upper-half down to the centre of the screen, and you should be in English mode.

To return to Chinese, perform the same procedure(s).

Annoyingly, once done, the setting doesn't always stay. You may find from time to time that for no apparent reason you are back in Chinese mode, and thus will have to change back to English again.

These methods work for a Chinese/English P900, and so I am only assuming they'll work on a C/E P800 too.

Good luck!

_________________
:¬)

[ This Message was edited by: NikZane on 2004-11-10 03:26 ]
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Posted: 2004-11-10 04:23:01
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Hehey!!!!

Excellent!!! It works!!! It's a good workaround and it'll do for now. Cheers man.

Of course the keyboard remains steadfastly chinese which is more then a little annoying and the transition from Grafitti to Jot is going to take time but looks like I'm on my way.

Now... it is ever the fault of man never to be satisfied with his lot- so...... how do I either a) get Chinese OUT of there for good or b) give myself an English Language default option?

As I said I don't even mind if the Chinese is ROM'd into my P800 so long as I can install English on it and set English as the default language and text input. Possible?

Do the "PC Suite" CDs help at all? I use Macs so I'll have to borrow a mate's PC if I want to install any further languages on the P800 with these suspiciously windows applications. That's not a problem but will it be a more permanent fix?

Cheers lads

DIRAVI

[ This Message was edited by: DIRAVIdude on 2004-11-10 03:56 ]
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Posted: 2004-11-10 04:48:03
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I have yet to find a way to remove Chinese permanently, nor install English over the top and have it remain as default.

The CD's didn't help me, mainly because it was all in Chinese. ;¬) So I downloaded the latest version of the data suite I could find (from SE), then tried running the "Download Language" app, which has options for "Internet" & "Hard Drive" - both yielded a "No language files were found!" (despite even downloading a Language Pack manually myself and placing it in the correct directory).

Shortly thereafter I conceded defeat.

I've since installed "eZiTap" by ZiCorp, which has replaced the Chinese keyboard with a very nice English keyboard (and includes a common-use predictive text feature that displays potential matches for characters you've tapped, prioritizing your most recently used words). eZiTap also includes latin-accented characters, which the Chinese keyboard excludes.

If you have as little luck as I did removing/replacing Chinese in favor of English using SE's Data Suite, then I highly recommend eZiTap. It's a great add-on that I've come to rely on daily.

(I'm a Mac user too btw ;¬))

_________________
:¬)

[ This Message was edited by: NikZane on 2004-11-10 23:30 ]
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Posted: 2004-11-11 00:28:53
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Hiya NickZane

One must wonder at the thinking behind this decision of SonyEricsson's of having Chinese-specific phones which can't be retro-setup for other languages. Are other market-specific versions (e.g. French, Japanese) as iinflexible?

I would have thought that the computer OS approach was the most cost effective- have something capable of being configured in any language depending on the user's setup.

In any event that ezitap thing looks awfully attractive. I've checked it out and will almost certainly get it- just as soon as I've upgraded to Panther (still running Jaguar) and bought a blutooth adapter for my iBook.

Any recommendations for USB Mac-friendly bluetooth adapters?

Cheers man

DIRAVI
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Posted: 2004-11-11 13:56:30
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