question about handhelds/smartphones and Cyrillic

[Renee Stillings | Alinga]

I have used a Blackberry in Russia (as remotely as Astrakhan) and my
understanding is that the Cyrillic ability is currently under development
only. I get gibberish when receiving Cyrillic. However, if they send you the
message as a simple Word attachment, you can open that and read Cyrillic at
least. But you can't edit it.

I am wondering, on such a small keyboard, how they will make a bilingual
keyboard, as would normally be the case on all things in Russia.

In terms of actually receiving/sending messages, it works fine in Russia - I
use it all the time. And at least with T-Mobile, it does not seem to incur
any roaming charges (probably as long as you don't try to download and open
huge attachments). The only trick is that when you land in Russia, you need
to change your network options to Manual rather than the Automatic it
usually is on in the US, and then do a manual search for networks. Beeline
handles GPRS data definitely and I hear now the others (MTS and Megafon) do
as there is local service capability for Russians.

Try to avoid at all costs using the phone though - you will get a whopping
bill!!

Renee Stillings
Director, SRAS

----- Original Message -----
From: "lynne debenedette" <lynne_debenedette at BROWN.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 6:41 PM
Subject: [SEELANGS] question about handhelds/smartphones and Cyrillic


>A question about Blackberrys, Treos, etc.:

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