Recommended mobile phone

[onebir]

I just dropped my mobile in the toilet... Yes, it does happen.

It's kind of working, but if it doesn't finally return to full functionality, i'll need to buy a new one.

Could anyone recommend recommend a phone with bilingual system and maybe a E-C C-E dictionary*? I'm not sure whether to go for a decent basic dual band (minimum) or a cameraphone with some bells and whistles.

Also helpful if you could give me an idea of prices and good places to buy...

Thanks

*i guess a radical index is just too much to ask

[gato]

Get Treo 650 and install PlecoDict on it. You'll love it.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/9177-buying-a-treo-650-in-beijing-and-some-questions&highlight=treo

http://www.pleco.com/

[roddy]

Or any Pocket PC based phone, and install Plecodict.

That could well be out of budget now though. For a bells and whistles camera phone, I dearly love my SE W800 - great phone to use, takes very impressive 2mp photos and makes a great MP3 player.

[onebir]

Thanks guys. Phone seems to have recovered, so less urgent. But how do SE w800s go for in beijing? And do they have a dictionary?

[roddy]

2800Y at Joyo.com, didn't check anywhere else.

I've yet to see a decent dictionary on a phone - the ones that are out there are going to be designed for Chinese learners of English.

[onebir]

thanks again

I've yet to see a decent dictionary on a phone - the ones that are out there are going to be designed for Chinese learners of English.

ah - good point!

[babygodzilla]

is joyo.com a good website? im trying to order a phone from dangdang.com and its giving me a lot of pain in the ass... DangDang can't take payment from my Beijing Zhongguo Yinhang because i opened it in beijing. Only zhongguo yinhang accounts from GuangDong and Shanghai are honored. i also cant do cash-on-delivery, because, again, im in Beijing. yeeeessh!! so much frickin trouble.

anyone know where i can get the Samsung X820/X828 for cheap in Beijing? the prices ive seen are ridiculous, about 3400 kuai!!! in Indonesia i can get it for about 2500 kuai, and at DangDang it's 1950 kuai. DangDang says the street price is 2560 kuai, which is about right and is the price im looking for. how could it be 3400 kuai in beijing?!?! i tried bargaining for it once at zhongguancun, and they just wont let go... any recommended places to buy a cellphone? maybe that guy was just being an asshole...

[Nathaniel Brown]

Hi,

Personally I'm loving Pleco on the Treo 650 and I don't think I'd want anything else. The only problem is that the M-Zone sim card doesn't work in it so I had to get another number.

That being said the SE w810c is a great phone and it's on special in Beijing at the moment for the holidays. We got it two weeks ago for about 3500 and now it's about 2900 :-( That's life. There is also a dictionay for it based on CEDICT - http://www.mandarintools.com/cedict.html The obvious problem with it is that it only does chinese to english not english to chinese. The english to chinese is very hit and miss :-( I've been trying it out on my wifes phone and it's almost useless. That being said as a phone it's really cool. Haven't had any problems with it so far.

Hope that helps a little bit.

[palindrome]

This may or may not be helpful because I don't know if you're looking for a really sexy phone, but I have an Eastcom EG755 that I like a lot. It was about 700 kuai. The reception has always been great. It has C-E/E-C dictionary that is very easy to use but has a somewhat basic vocabulary. I *think* it's dual band--I don't know anything about cell phone technology. But it's cheap, small, reliable, and gets good reception.

[onebir]

Just thought I'd selfishly bump this, since I'm back in China &'d like to be able to text in Chinese &/ use pinyin input to show characters to the people who really just don't get what I'm talking about ;-)

Less selfishly, perhaps it'd be helpful to organise discussion about mobiles in China into several threads:

- cheap but cheerful 一次性 models (mainly Chinese brands I guess)

- bells & whistles mobiles (mainly foreign brands, since we'll want to be able to get them serviced in other countries)

- palm/ppc phones

[Shadowdh]

I have an L7 that I installed a chinese language pack on and it works fine, I also found a dictionary that is pretty basic but works (slow though)... I would also suggest a good phone that does ppc and then you can put pleco on it... thats something I am looking into at the moment...

[cdn_in_bj]

Well pretty much any mobile phone sold in China should support both English and Chinese Pinyin input. The exception may be some of the really cheap, local brands - I don't know, as I haven't had any experience with those.

As far as specific models/brands, you'll find that Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and Motorola are very popular here. There is a wide selection of models in the electronics stores, and anything you can't find there you can get grey market. Here's my thoughts on the major brands:

Nokia - I would say that Nokia is the most popular brand here. You can find the very basic and inexpensive models (which also happen to be nearly indestructable) as well as the top-end "smartphones" and "multimedia computers" running the Series 60 operating system. The N-series, specifically N70 and N73, is pretty hot here. It's actually quite unbelieveable how many of my colleagues at work have switched to N70 or N73 within the past year. There are also many users of the somewhat less expensive Series 40 models. If you are considering 2nd-hand, I would say that Nokia would be a good choice as there should be lots to choose from and fundamentally speaking Nokia phones haven't really changed that much in the past few years, they've just added more bells and whistles. Note that if you get a Nokia phone and decide to upgrade the memory card, you'll need to copy the dictionary word database from the original card over to the new card if you plan to use the built-in C-E/E-C dictionary (Google for more info).

Sony Ericsson - has seen a real boost in popularity with their very successful Walkman line of music phones and Cybershot line of camera phones (such as the K790c and K810c). Other interesting models include the P-series business/PDA phones as well as the more compact M600/610.

Samsung - up until recently their focus has been on stylish slider and thin candybar phones, but they are about to release several new touch-screen phones (the "Ultra Smart" line) which I'm sure will be available here eventually

Motorola - probably my least favourite of the bunch, mainly due to the UI. That said, I've heard good things about their "Ming" PDA phone from locals who praise its Chinese character input/recognition software.

On the topic of PDA phones, you can get Palm Treos here and even RIM Blackberry now. There is also a local brand "Dopod" - they have a range of Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) phones. I also see some users of HP Windows Mobile PDA/phones, but I suspect that these are grey market imports.

With all these choices in phones you should be able to find one to you liking here and I hope you found this helpful. As for myself, I am actually toying with the idea of switching to a Treo to be able to use the Pleco software without having to carry an extra device...

[skylee]

Re #12. I think N70 is ok. The only shortcomings are that it operates on Symbian which means when you turn on the phone it takes minutes to start up, and that the camera is only 2 MP. I have heard about the card and dictionary thing but I could use the built-in dictionary of my nokia phones even after I had the memory cards changed.

Am now using SE K810i. Highly recommended.

[badr]

I highly recommend SE!! Their phones are a notch above the competition in terms of durability and stability.

My 3 years old Z600 still gets at least 2 days of battery life on the original battery.. can't beat that!

I splurged a few weeks ago and got myself the SE W850i which is just amazing! 3 days without having to recharge all while using the phone and listening to music. how about that? Chinese and English are supported plus that great little toy that is gmail mobile for checking my email on the go.

[tuxoar]

I also love SE phones, bought a z500a in the US also 2 or 3 years ago and never looked at using another brand. Last summer bought a w800c in China, battery life is great, decent apps, flexible and fast.

[onebir]

All the SE phones use memory stick though, right? Which is only compatible with sony products (providing they accept the same one of the 5 confusing memory stick flavours...)

:s

[roddy]

Yeah, I'm a bit fan of my SE W800, but the extra cost of memory for it is a pain. If it'd use an SD card like everything else I own I'd be delighted.

[venture160]

I used a SE K300i back in the day for about a year, and about 7 months in the thumbpad started to go on me, most notably the joystick, thats one thing I dont like about SE's is their use of the joystick. Unless you want all the Bells and Whistles to ring in the girls (it actually works in China) I'd go for a solid, simple nokia. Also the W800 is severely outdated, there is now a W830, W850, W888, W950, W900, etc etc. Some of these might not be available yet, but I found the basement of 鼎好 at ZhongGuanCun always carried the newest cell phones before they hit the market. Be careful, most of them are 水货

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1200-1976.php It won't cost you more than $50 bucks but will last at least a year. It does'nt win any contests for looks or features, but hey, its all you need!

I personally use the Treo 650 because I am a rabid user of Pleco. There's nothing better than being able to read obscure advertisements for urinary infection treatments on the subway!

Roddy, if you use your SE for a phone, what do you use for a Pleco, do you bring both around with you?

[heifeng]

Nothing is more indestructable than a basic nokia phone. I also just have a basic model with a color screen, cost about 800 yuan almost 2 years ago. No problems at all, it has has both fallen many times from many heights and been thrown a few time too. The only sign of it showing it's age is that after the 1 yr mark the paint started to get worn off in certain areas, especially the faux chrome trim around the screen.

However, (and I mentioned it already in another post), does anyone have that lenovo S phone? It just looks pretty to me, but is it durable? ...Anyway, one day this nokia better break so I can rationalize buying a new phone....so far no one has tried to steal it...poor lil' unglamourous phone.

[imron]

Agree! The only signs of age my nokia 3310 has (bought for 800 kuai 5 years ago), is that the screen is black and green and the battery barely lasts a day. This model doesn't have fancy-shmancy extras like paint, so there's little sign of wear on the actual casing