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Japanese SMS and mail on Western phones? No problem…
April 22nd, 2009

This one flew well under the radar when it was launched a few weeks ago, but the news that Japanese-speaking residents of the UK can finally get their phones speaking fluent kanji, hiragana and katakana is worth revisiting.

Using MVNO a2n’s berry mobile service, owners of certain Nokia phones can get all Nihongo with it through SMS, e-mail and selected websites.

If you don’t have any need for Japanese, this means nothing, but as a former UK resident sick of typing out paragraphs of Japanese in Romaji, it would be a definite deal-maker in choosing a phone if I lived there again.

Prices start at £25 ($36) for the Nokia 6630 on a two-year contract that will set you back a minimum of £35 ($50) a month.

As a nice plus, a deal with DoCoMo means there’s plenty of Japanese content and customer support in Japanese. Oh, and it’s all available in Belgium, Germany and Thailand too.

Incidentally, European and US residents in the market for a new phone might want to check out TestFreaks’ phone site for their handy price comparison engine, reviews and all-round handset goodness. Makes a nice alternative to kelkoo and PriceGrabber in our book.

(Via berry mobile)

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02:00 PM Yoshi Suzuki • Permalink
NOT Japan | Wireless
Tagged with: berry mobile docomo nokia uk
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