CE-STAR or other alternatives

[weilian]

Hey ya'll

I'm in China right now with a semi-busted HTC Touch(no physical keyboard) phone that has a broken USB connection. Reinstalling a Chinese version of Windows is out of the question then. Bluetooth works at a glacial speed but I could set it up before going to bed in order to load a program that would allow me to read and write hanzi.

What options are there for this? I've heard about CE-Star but from what I understand it acts as an alternative keyboard in the Windows interface rather than allowing you to switch languages while still using your current keyboard. Is this true? Is their keyboard big enough? Any other free alternatives?

Weilian

[roddy]

The one I tend to use most is 点讯输入, which came on my phone. You can see from the screenshots what it does. It's not perfect, but it's good enough that I haven't bothered spending time finding anything else. The download is free, not sure if it's on a trial basis or what.

I don't think your lack of a USB connection is a real obstacle - you should be able to work around it by putting any files you need on your memory card, or emailing them to yourself if you have access to a wifi connection. My USB connection is dodgy (teach me not to try and reset my phone while half-asleep, was jamming the stylus into the usb connection ) and that's what I usually do. Any place that sells HTC grey imports is likely able to put a Chinese OS on there for a small fee. Might even get your USB fixed.