I've just bought the phone (Z1 compact) and cannot figure out how to compose long (GSM 7-bit encoding) SMS messages in greek, with the native xperia z1 keyboard. The greek language is the only non-latin-character language that is included in GSM 7-bit encoding (only for CAPITAL letters). Traditionally -- since the beginning of GSM in the 90's -- mobile phone manufacturers, naturally, take advantage of this and allow long messaging with 7-bit encoding.
This feature is implemented like this: when greek is chosen as input language, the sms application translates the typed letters (whether lower or UPPER case) into UPPERcase letters of the GSM 7-bit character table:
- only-greek letters: are just converted to CAPITAL greek letters (which exist in the 7bit table anyway).
- common letters in both languages are converted to their corresponding latin CAPITAL letters.
SEE TRANSLATION MAP!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/13huqzi3z9r1cnd/GSM_7bit_translation_table.png?dl=0
That way, all the GSM 7bit table is taken advantage of, and we can write greek/latin sms messages in the full 7bit length.
It is really disappointing if SONY has no intention to implement this feature which exists in the mobile business for decades. Recently MOTOROLA did the same mistake, and had to include the fix in a system upgrade in Moto G. They added a setting in the SMS application so the user can now switch manually the 7bit or unicode encoding.
If SONY does not do the same it will be very disappointing.
P.S. if there is an official feature-request form to communicate with SONY please help me so I can get in touch with the right people.
