it's a bummer that i can't connect to the internet or retrieve my pics, seeing as the phone cost more than $200...
What does the cost of the phone have to do with it? If your computer doesn't have Bluetooth (one of the main ways the phone communicates) you're going to be limited in what you can do with it. That's not the phones fault!
However, you can both connect to the internet and retrieve your pictures without any additional software or 'drivers', although both would be considerably easier if you had Bluetooth in your computer or were running Mac OS X 10.5.
Having Bluetooth would also allow you to use
iSync to sync your Contacts and Calendars from Address Book and iCal, using an iSync Plugin from
here.
To copy pictures, music etc. to and from the phone, simply connect it to the Mac with the USB cable, and when prompted choose "File Transfer" mode from the menu that appears on the phone's screen. This will mount the phones memory on the desktop as a drive which you can copy to and from.
See the page below for details on how you can connect to the internet via your phone, although as already mentioned, this would be a lot easier if you had Bluetooth.
http://www.feisar.com/connections.html
You can easily and cheaply add Bluetooth functionality to your Mac by purchasing a compatible USB Bluetooth dongle - the only one officially supported and recommended by Apple is the *D-Link DBT-120*, however the *Edimax EB-DGC1* also reportedly works with iSync.
The Operating System of the phone is the same, regardless of where the phone was purchased, or which market it was intended for. However, it is possible to reflash the firmware of the phone and add different language packs for the interface and T9 predictive text dictionaries, using third-party tools. (An official Sony Ericsson Service Centre won't change languages for you, they'll just update the OS to the latest version).
(If the phone has Chinese language on it, then it must've been destined for the Chinese market. All phones have English installed, but ones destined for the UK, also have other Western European languages installed, such as French, German etc.)
You will need access to a Windows PC to do this though, and the process is likely to void your warranty. If you decide to proceed have a look at the web-sites linked below:
http://www.wotanserver.com/
http://www.davinciteam.com/
Julian
Aluminium 20" iMac 2.4Ghz, 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.5.2)
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