I successfully got a contract with CHT a few weeks ago with no guarantor and no deposit (it’s $2900) I told them that it was nonsensical, immoral and discriminatory, and I argued through various levels of management for an hour an a half before they relented. I’m just posting to say that it CAN be done, you just have to be persuasive. 
[/quote]
It may have been because Maoman is smelly, and they figured they had to do anything to get him out of their office.
When buying a smart phone in Taiwan you need to take care that you either are able to read Chinese, or that you buy a phone from a company that actually has brains … I mean commercial brains … it seems that most don’t think it’s worth having a WM 6.X license and sell phones with only the Chinese version … there are probably a few 100,000’s of people out there that don’t read Chinese but want to buy a smart phone …
I’m one of them … every phone i liked or wanted came only in Chinese WM … it sucks big time believe me, because 95% of the settings I have no clue about, what I’m doing or how it’s going to turn out …
Well, you can generally find firmwares in English for most of them, but not all.
Always search to see if you can find firmware upgrades for them before you buy.
As long as the handset isn’t locked, you should be able to cross upgrade the firmware and afaik, no phones sold in Taiwan are locked in the same way they are in Europe.
There are of course ways around this too 
[quote=“Belgian Pie”]When buying a smart phone in Taiwan you need to take care that you either are able to read Chinese, or that you buy a phone from a company that actually has brains … I mean commercial brains … it seems that most don’t think it’s worth having a WM 6.X license and sell phones with only the Chinese version … there are probably a few 100,000’s of people out there that don’t read Chinese but want to buy a smart phone …
I’m one of them … every phone i liked or wanted came only in Chinese WM … it sucks big time believe me, because 95% of the settings I have no clue about, what I’m doing or how it’s going to turn out …[/quote]
Damn, BP how could you be so blind to buy a CHN unit interface only? At least if you woul have bought an HTC with WM6.1 ,I could have helped you installing the English WM6.1 (no worry about guarantee- I have a profecience on this hehe)
Though - with Toshiba, I am not so sure if you can find “leaked” WM6.1 UI’s on the net… give it a try?!
As for the licences, I was told by several HTC staff member that there is no agreement with M$ for Taiwan itself. Only export…
Discrimenation? soulds as, but for the limited # of phones they would sell here to foreigners their ROI is not sufficient.
(HK is still cheaper for high-end Smartphones -PDA phones when you go to Kowloon and do not mind a HK guarantee only)
Try to dump your toshiba 
I just realised that the link got screwed up somehow, missed your comment about it not working, sorry.
I’ve edited the old post and explained why, so give it a try again.
And it’s also an update to WM 6.1, so no need to “dump” your handset.
I read that the majority of language locked Chinese OS only smartphones are sold that way without the option of installing English OS to prevent grey market dealers coming out to Taiwan, buying a few hundred/thousand handsets and selling them in English speaking overseas markets where MSRP is much higher than TW local retail price… It’s simple “don’t kill the golden goose” logic from the manufacturers… The handful of us folks who want English OS in Taiwan are small fish in comparison and S.O.L…
[quote=“Jack Burton”]there’s a slew of smartphones out…
check out the new Nokia E75. It may have the features you want (minus touchscreen)
expansys.com/d.aspx?i=178662[/quote]
If you’re shopping around, check out the above link, (thanks Jack), it has complete descriptions in English of many, many phones targeted for Taiwan, tho the warehouse/office is in Hong Kong. Really wish I had found this earlier in my searching thru Forumosa for shopping info!
[quote=“TaiwaneseStomach”][quote=“Jack Burton”]there’s a slew of smartphones out…
check out the new Nokia E75. It may have the features you want (minus touchscreen)
expansys.com/d.aspx?i=178662[/quote]
If you’re shopping around, check out the above link, (thanks Jack), it has complete descriptions in English of many, many phones targeted for Taiwan, tho the warehouse/office is in Hong Kong. Really wish I had found this earlier in my searching thru Forumosa for shopping info![/quote]
Expansys HK does not ship phones to TW (issue with importing BT and Wifi sets being a “national security risk” no joke ) as I know from own experience (and posted 2 years ago)
the next big thing should be the Nokia N97 - soon out.
Uhm, there’s Expansys Taiwan which is part of the HK business and they DO ship to Taiwan as I’ve ordered from them and had it delivered here no problem at all.
Seems you have to be very smart (or dumb) to decide on the right smart phone. Maybe smart phones should be called simple phones.
Simplifying things is what smart phone should do right? Get an iPhone and life will be simple and smart.
Opes Woepsie- seems my info is outdated. 
I tried to order a phone thru Expansys TW (which was a mirror of HK indeed) some time ago and did got a reply they were not allowed to sell to TW. (i even argued and threatend to write to the fair trade commision :raspberry: )
Good to hear. They have sometimes very very good deals on older models !
[quote=“tango42”]Seems you have to be very smart (or dumb) to decide on the right smart phone. Maybe smart phones should be called simple phones.
Simplifying things is what smart phone should do right? Get an iPhone and life will be simple and smart.[/quote]
The iPhone phone and service plan is a little bit over-the-top expensive IMO. Hard to believe that Chunghwa Telecom has the gall to sell it with that kind of premium and service plan requirements. Well, I guess one can argue the same about Taiwan Mobile and BlackBerry plans.
[quote=“catfish13”]
The iPhone phone and service plan is a little bit over-the-top expensive IMO. Hard to believe that Zhonghua Telecom has the gall to sell it with that kind of premium and service plan requirements. Well, I guess one can argue the same about Taiwan Mobile and BlackBerry plans.[/quote]
I went to a Senao to get a new 中華電信 postpaid 3G sim for my HTC Dream (G1 from my T-Mo service in the States). While I was there, I asked them whether it was possible to get a subsidized price on the HTC Magic (i’m sure you’ve all seen the ads on National Geographic Channel). Apparently they won’t even subsidize the Magic at this point; you have to pay the full NT$20,000 price. But atleast they don’t require you to get a dataplan. I dunno how that makes sense in a smartphone context.
In February I burned up NT$3000 on recharge vouchers for my prepaid 中華 3G sim. NT$3000 that only bought about 30 megabytes of data :loco:
[quote=“jashsu”][quote=“catfish13”]
The iPhone phone and service plan is a little bit over-the-top expensive IMO. Hard to believe that Zhonghua Telecom has the gall to sell it with that kind of premium and service plan requirements. Well, I guess one can argue the same about Taiwan Mobile and BlackBerry plans.[/quote]
I went to a Senao to get a new 中華電信 postpaid 3G sim for my HTC Dream (G1 from my T-Mo service in the States). While I was there, I asked them whether it was possible to get a subsidized price on the HTC Magic (I’m sure you’ve all seen the ads on National Geographic Channel). Apparently they won’t even subsidize the Magic at this point; you have to pay the full NT$20,000 price. But atleast they don’t require you to get a dataplan. I dunno how that makes sense in a smartphone context.
In February I burned up NT$3000 on recharge vouchers for my prepaid 中華 3G sim. NT$3000 that only bought about 30 megabytes of data :loco:[/quote]
I find it terrifying that they don’t require some sort of data plan on a WinMo phone. My first (and last) WinMo phone was a Samsung Blackjack with AT&T a few years back and that thing had a mind of its own and decided to connect somewhere at the PPU rate of $0.01/kb…
I was expecting an iPhone 3G to cost the same or less than how much AT&T charges: $199USD for an 8GB, $30USD/month of data reqs for 2 years, but was surprised to find it priced much higher than expected. This simply doesn’t make sense in a country where mobile rates are so much lower than that of the US, and at even more cutthroat competition.
It wasn’t a subsidized price was it? I imagine if you got a subsidized pricing, it would be much more in line with US subsidized pricing. ($199 for 8GB).
My Treo 650 is dead and I was so reliant on the Qwerty keyboard I have had a tough time with our old Nokia.
Does anyone have a second hand Treo in good condition to sell? I do no read Chinese so it must be English.
joesax gave me a tip about Yahoo but I’m also interested in any online sources (PC Home? monday.com.tw) that will allow me to sstttreeeetttccchhhh my NTs for a brand new one.
joesax also suggested that I look at a Windows OS instead of Palm but I don’t think I have the time to research the options or learn anything new…
Thank you!! 
[quote=“braxtonhicks”]My Treo 650 is dead and I was so reliant on the Qwerty keyboard I have had a tough time with our old Nokia.
Does anyone have a second hand Treo in good condition to sell? I do no read Chinese so it must be English.
joesax gave me a tip about Yahoo but I’m also interested in any online sources (PC Home? monday.com.tw) that will allow me to sstttreeeetttccchhhh my NTs for a brand new one.
joesax also suggested that I look at a Windows OS instead of Palm but I don’t think I have the time to research the options or learn anything new…
Thank you!! [/quote]I didn’t specifically recommend Windows, actually, though there are certainly some great recent Windows phones. I just said the old Palm OS was going the way of the dinosaur. With no Unicode it’s not super-easy to get your old Palm data onto another device, either, though if you don’t have data in Chinese it’s a lot easier.
What do you need your smartphone to do? I’m sure people here will be happy to give you some suggestions.
PalmOS is pretty archaic and of course the lack of unicode can be a problem. I’d wholly recommend an Android-based phone like T-Mobile G1 (you’d need to find an unlocked one of course) if you use a lot of Google services like Gmail or Google Talk. The iPhone 3G is also another option, if you can find a 2100MHz one to work with Taiwan’s 3G networks. Finally, of course there’s the Windows Mobile option. Winmo is not quite so userfriendly so if you want something that “just works” it might not be the best choice. However its Exchange support and back catalog of third party apps is impressive. Some more recommendable models include HTC Touch Diamond.
Nokia makes several QWERTY phones that run Symbian 60 and they’re relatively user-friendly and have support for Exchange.
Sorry about that, joesax, you did say that about Palm.
Thanks to the three of you for your replies.
What I want most is the little qwerty keyboard. Although I do not access the internet on my phone (I’m online enough as it is) I do sends lots of text messages (cheaper and more efficient than calls) and often journal, make notes, make shopping lists, update expenses, access lesson plans, etc… Sure Palm might be ‘archaic’ now but I’ve probably used it for around ten years and I kinda like things to be familiar.
What I missed most going from my old Palm to my Treo was Graffiti.
I’d also like to learn to read and write Chinese (eventually) so one that would allow that would be a plus.
It would also be great if I could use it both here and abroad.
Is there a smartphone that meets all these needs? I think I might also stop by FNAC and see what’s available but I’d also appreciate recommendations here. Thanks in advance!