Imported a Phone Like the HTC One X from Europe and Can’t Find “English (United States)” as a System Language?

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This is probably an issue that many will never run into unless you take your phone obsession to the next level and start importing phones from overseas, but we wanted to make you aware of it in case this ends up happening at some point. When you buy an unlocked phone from say, the UK, it was meant to stay in the UK or in Europe and not the U.S. Typically, when you first boot a phone like this and start the setup process, it will think you are in another country, automatically displaying time and languages from somewhere outside of say, Kansas. On most phones, you can fix the issue simply by going into “Language & keyboard” and finding “English (United States)” from the “System Language” pull down and never worry about it again. But from time to time, like with an imported phone like the HTC One X (unboxing and first impressions), “English United States” is not listed (see middle screenie below), so you have to choose another variation of the English language. Well why is that an issue, you ask?

For reading and writing, it’s not. English is English. But certain apps tend to look at your “System Language” to determine how they should function. Take Amazon MP3 for example. When loaded with “English (United Kingdom)” set on my phone, it would pull up Amazon UK and not give me access to all of the music I had stored in my cloud here in the States. Prices also showed up in GBP rather than dollars and there is no setting in the actual app to have it switch off of this version. So what can you do?

Simple. Install an app called MoreLocale 2 and find the language you desire (screenshot bottom left). That’s it. While it doesn’t appear to actually install any other languages on your device, it seemingly tricks it into thinking that it is another language, making your phone function the way it should. The minute I chose “English (United States)” I was able to reload Amazon and get the U.S. store front with all of my cloud.

Oh, and so far, after installing, selecting a language, and then uninstalling the app, it still believes that my phone is running the United States version of English.

  

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