I have a SonyEricsson T610 mobile phone that I bought in Australia and I am happily using it with a Telefonica Movistar Activa SIM card.

BUT, the problem is that being an Australian model, I can't switch the menus to be in Spanish (English, French and German are the only options). This drives me up the wall because when I type a Spanish message I have to laboriously cycle through the alphabet instead of using fast predictive text input.

In order to get it in Spanish the firmware will need to be upgraded. I tried to get it done in Australia, and although they do firmware upgrades, nobody had a Spanish firmware. They suggested I try here in Madrid.

Anyone got any advice? Recommendations? I have seen in another post by jer he recommends a tech place in Plaza de Espa�a for service to SonyEricsson phones. I wonder if they can do it.

I also wonder if upgrading the firmware has the effect of erasing the phone's other memory too (ie. where I already have stored a heap of numbers etc). If it turns out that the memory does get erased then I'll just have to sync it with my laptop via Bluetooth... don't you just love technology?

hmmmmmmm... first off, a reprimand for sony-ericsson and their not having included spanish as a op. sys. lang. on that phone

many of the latest model cellphones limit their language choices to save memory space, my p800 gave me the choice to configure the phone for many languages when i first turned it on but then it proceeded to erase the other languages to save on memory space. so, if i want to change the language i need to download the software from the sony ericsson website.

yes, you can do a firware upgrade here at many different places.

be careful, many places are not reputable and can destroy your phone in the process they are the typical places that "unlock" ("liberar") cell phones for between 5 and 30 euros. some will say they can reload the os software and then may find they do not have the correct software for your model phone. so, instead of giving you back your money, they will load the software for a different model into your cell, either damaging it or removing certain functions

more of a safe bet is that tech place i mentioned, it is the official technical service for many manufacturers and is called "eurotac" ( www.eurotac.es ). they are at plaza de espa�a n�12.

if you are here in madrid now, swing by and ask them if they can do what you need. if you are not here, i will ask them next time i am in the area.

since a firmware upgrade is not a phone-saving (repairing) operation, they will most likely charge you for it (it is like elective surgery, not necessary and hence not covered by warranty).

not sure if your phone is more than 1 year old nor if it has a warranty to begin with.

another thing to keep in mind is that this type of firmware upgrade will most likely take the form of completely erasing the current os of the phone and re-loading the new version of the os (with spanish included). yes, this will most likely affect the memory but as you said, sync it and back up the phone before you do anything.

you can ask them if they can simply add the spanish lang. option but odds are they will have to replace current os with the spanish version.

quote:

... don't you just love technology?

and then some :l:

saludos,
jer...

Thanks jer, I knew you would come up with the goods.

I'm living a five-minute walk from the Plaza de Espa�a, so I will pop by and ask them today or tomorrow and report the results back here... Thanks...

hey Greguito, cool.

i will also be over by plaza espa�a either this afternoon or sometime tomorrow. they know me at eurotac (if not by name, then by face) there so i am curious to compare what they tell you to what they tell me about getting that phone into spanish.

let's both post back here with the responses.

may be interesting.

saludos,
jer...

hey Greguito, looks like "27.89" is the magic number.

i was by there today and that (27.89�) is what i was told by the peeps at eurotac will cost to get your t610 into spanish.

just make sure when you go you tell them you still want the option of changing back to english as well so they do not put in some kind of spanish only mutant software :jeje:

i think it is 27.89� since that is their per hour tech service labor rate and 1 hour is the min.

forgot to ask about the rest of the phone memory thang but i made enough of a scene that when you go in they will know what it is all about, just ask about the memory thing or back up the phone on your laptop before you go in just in case.

they did say you have to leave the phone for about 4 days but i am pretty sure that was a "just in case" time frame as they usually get to phones i bring in within a day or 2.

saludos,
jer...

Hehe.... Oh my goodness! How will I be able to survive without my phone for (potentially) four days! Might have to rent one, eh?

In any case, thanks for taking such an interest in this topic!

hey Greguito, no problem amigo, cellphones is my game.

let us know how it goes.

saludos,
jer...

Just so everyone knows, Eurotac are indeed "the bomb" (ie. good).

They had my phone for just under 48 hours, and when I went in to pick it up they was no charge because they'd classified it as a warranty repair! I was a little surprised by this because I certainly had no paperwork with me or receipts or anything proving a date of purchase.

The phone is really only about six months old, but as this isn't a fault with the phone but an optional mod, I would've been prepared to cover their labour charge...

So, very happy with it and now my phone can do messages and menus not only in Spanish and English, but in a bunch of other European languages as well, and the UI feels faster too, so I suspect this is a more up-to-date and optimized firmware.

Just resynching all my contacts via Bluetooth now...

hey Greguito, thanks for the update, glad they came through for ya.

quote:

they'd classified it as a warranty repair! I was a little surprised by this because I certainly had no paperwork with me or receipts or anything proving a date of purchase.

this is normal, they will normally take any phone that is under factory warranty without a store receipt or even without the warranty card itself.

they look at the IMEI number (phone id code) and if it has been less than a year since the phone was manufactired, you need no more to have it serviced.

if the IMEI tells them the phone was manufactured more than a year (standard cell phone manufacturer warranty period on most brands), then they would ask you for an invoice proving you purchased the phone less than 1 year ago. in this case the store may have sold it a few months after the manufacture date so the warranty is good for 1 year from date of purchase.

saludos,
jer...

Here's a SonyEricsson story people might enjoy. Actually, it's more of a "I hate Vodafone" story. Warning: It's a long story and I even had to edit it substantially to not bore people to death.

Here goes:

My 2 1/2 year old Sony Ericsson T68i was getting pretty old and one day the cats finished off chewing the adapter's plug to pieces (no fried cats luckily). I went to check out the prices for a new adapter but decided instead to go for one of the new Sony Ericsson v800s that were being offered for ridiculously low prices (about 70€ with contract).

However, each store I went to had sold out of v800s and told me they'd get a new shipment in a few days. A few days later I checked the Phone House again but still no v800. I asked one of the store assistants to check whether any of the other Phone Houses had them. "Click, click, click. Ah yes, the one near Urgel has 6!"

So I march over to Urgel and asked the assistant for a SE v800. "Sorry, they're all reserved."



"The girl in the other shop said you had 6 in stock."
"Yes but they're taken and our computers don't show if they're reserved."



I leave the store and notice a Vodafone store nearby. It's closed. No sign with opening/closing times. Gee thanks.

To cut the whole marching-around-Madrid-fruitlessly story, I ended up at a Vodafone store on Gran Via that finally told me the v800 had been discontinued and no one had them anymore.

ARRGH!

I went home and through EBay got a SE v800 for a reasonable price from England that was locked to Vodafone. Once it arrived I inserted my Vodafone SIM card into it and received the message

"Please Insert Correct SIM Card"

Once again I marched back to Vodafone where the first attendant told me my phone was broken and had to be repaired at the Vodafone repair shop at Plaza España 10 (yes Jer, 10). I march over there to find.... no Vodafone repair shop. I then went to the Vodafone shop nearby on calle Princesa where the attendant said "The repair place is at Plaza España 12. But, there's nothing physically wrong with your phone. Your real problem is that the phone is locked."

I said, "I know, it's locked to Vodafone."
"You don't understand. It's locked to Vodafone, England."
"What??!!"
"English Vodafone phones don't work with Spanish SIM cards, even prepaid cards!"

5..4..3..2..1.. AAARARARRRRGRGRGRGRGGRGRGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

She told me to go to a locutorio and have it unlocked. I was able to get it unlocked in about 5 hours at a little Chino (they wrote me a receipt on a torn off piece of paper bag).

In the end I got it back unlocked ('Very hard to unlock' said the store owner) and headed back home with my "working" phone.

I tried out the SMS function and decided to write something in Spanish. I went to the language menu and it had English, German, Turkish, Arabic, Hungarian... and you guessed it... NO SPANISH!

"¡ME CAGO EN VODAFONE Y SUS MALDITOS MOVILES!"

hey Roland.

hmmmm... what good is having friends in the biz if ya don't ask for help when you need them... silly boy!!!

i could have told you that vodafone is not vodafone, that is, vodafone uk is not vodafone spain. i tell my uk clients that about 3 times per week when they ask if their uk mobiles will take a spanish SIM card.

i also could have warned you against unlocking it at that chinos store as they are (in)famed for doing "chapuza" (poor hack) unlocks that may affect your phone ("affect" = "screw it up") in the future. they will NOT remember you if and when you go back, hence the paper bag receipt

the lack of spanish lang. on the phone could be due to 2 things.

1) vodafone uk does not offer spanish as a pre-loaded language option.

or...

2) the chinese shop that "unlocked" it did a reset and hence removed spanish if it was there before. they probably also reset your imei (serial number) to all "0"s which can cause probs with your handset.

i could have unlocked it the right way for 6 euros (the "friend" price).

quote:

Vodafone repair shop at Plaza España 10 (yes Jer, 10).

you misunderstood. they were sending you to "eurotac" (http://www.eurotac.es) at plaza españa number 12 (yes, 12) which is not a vodafone shop but the tech. service for most cell phone brands here. see the page at http://www.eurotac.es/eurotac/donde.html and click on madrid on the map then on madrid again, you will see it is at plaza españa 12.

i just got a SE v520i (click HERE to see it on the u.s. SE site as the one on SE spain is in spanish only) with my new vodafone contract. i have it "reserved" at one of the "phone house" shops on calle preciados as i am changing over from "amena" on the line in question and the handset is FREE

i now have 2 voice lines and 2 data lines with vodafone.

and that is not to mention the 60+ pay-as-you-go lines i have with them for my rental phone fleet.

they are the best overall when it comes to quality : price.

saludos,
jer...

oh, and i was at the rastro around 2pm today with a friend who has a stand there and a shop nearby where he unlocks phones.

if you had called me for help i could have had him unlock your SE for free.

by the way, reserved when talking about phones at the phone house usually means that, like in my case, the person has requested a change of cell carrier and selected a new phone to get. the phone is there but is in the customers name as the change of carrier takes about 12-15 days and until the line is changed over, the store cannot give the client the new phone but they hold it for him/her.

saludos,
jer...

Point well taken about asking friends in the biz first. Should have called you a lot sooner.

When I got to the point of needing the phone unlocked it was Saturday, I had no working phone on me, your number was on the SIM card, and I was due to start my new job on Monday. So...

It is still pretty crappy that people who own O2 phones from England can simply come to Spain, buy a cheap Amena SIM prepaid card, and poof! Cheap calls from Spain. Vodafone UK? eeeeee... not so much.

So... Does your friend do flash upgrades to SE v800s? From what I've read on the Internet you can flash upgrade the v800 to v802 or to a Z800i (thereby losing Vodafone Live!, but who cares?) and also upgrading to other languages.

- Roland

Roland--
If nothing else, your descent into the vodafone circle of hell generated a well-edited post that provided lots of knowing laughs at this end. When you started out at Phone House, I just knew that you would end up at the chino getting a cheap hack and a tattered paperbag receipt. Don't we all...

Jer--I've got to go to a contrato. I've had this pay-as-you-go-telefonica-highway-robbery phone for five years and it's killing me, but I'm too lazy to change it. I'm so sick of running out of saldo. Is Vodafone really the best? Can I keep my Telefonica number? It took me a year and a half to memorize it, I would have a nervous breakdown if I had to memorize a new number!

Am I going to get in trouble for not doing a search and for asking this question on the wrong thread?

Roland...

quote:

It is still pretty crappy that people who own O2 phones from England can simply come to Spain, buy a cheap Amena SIM prepaid card, and poof! Cheap calls from Spain. Vodafone UK? eeeeee... not so much.

look into that. as far as i know, 02 phones that are locked into 02 need to be unlocked to take any other SIM card that is not 02. if 02 does not lock their phones on the other hand, then no unlocking would be required.

as far as i know all uk providers (voda, 02, orange, bt cellnet, etc...) lock their handsets.

quote:

So... Does your friend do flash upgrades to SE v800s?

i will ask him and post here or call you.

mariposita...

quote:

I just knew that you would end up at the chino getting a cheap hack and a tattered paperbag receipt. Don't we all...

not if you come see the jer

quote:

Is Vodafone really the best? Can I keep my Telefonica number?

yes and yes.

saludos,
jer...