Enabling features by changing region?

[mikelo90]

Hello there, I'm a long-time reader of the forum, first time posting I am (unfortunately) still on Android (and I'm miserable about it), but I intend to by a WP device in a week or so.

So, I have a question for you guys. You know how in both Windows 8 and Windows Phone there are some features that are available only in certain regions of the world, like US. I live in Eastern Europe, so that restriction is kind of a problem for me. So, here is how I bypass it on my PC - I simply change regional settings to US, and I immediately get the "hero" search and all the apps in the store that were previously unavailable. Only the Xbox Music app somehow "knows" that I am cheating, but everything else works fine.

We all know we can expect Cortana to be English only in the beginning (and even later, I know I am not getting it in my native tongue for a long, long time). So I was wondering, will what I did on my PC work on my WP? Will it mess with my calls. mobile networks, or maybe the app store and stuff?

 

[Bryan Sayas]

Yes.

 

[irtiza_fayaz]

Yep.
You wouldn't need it anyway.
But Changing your phone region to US will enable additional functionality in the native Bing app and the US WP store.

P.s. There are certain apps, for eg. Nokia Mixradio, which use your SIM card to detect your region. For those apps, changing the region won't do anything.

 

[irtiza_fayaz]

We all know we can expect Cortana to be English only in the beginning (and even later, I know I am not getting it in my native tongue for a long, long time). So I was wondering, will what I did on my PC work on my WP? Will it mess with my calls. mobile networks, or maybe the app store and stuff?

It'll mess with your store and maybe your time. But the call/ Network stuff won't happen.
And Cortana's SDK files hint that there may be support for non-english language too.

 

[rcazador]

Hello there, I'm a long-time reader of the forum, first time posting I am (unfortunately) still on Android (and I'm miserable about it), but I intend to by a WP device in a week or so.

You might as well wait till April to see the new Lumias. The old ones will be cheaper then and more importantly the new Lumias will be better.

 

[mikelo90]

It'll mess with your store and maybe your time. But the call/ Network stuff won't happen.
And Cortana's SDK files hint that there may be support for non-english language too.

Yes, but as I said, I'm sure it won't support my language (Serbian) for a very long time. Which isn't a problem if this region thingy works

You might as well wait till April to see the new Lumias. The old ones will be cheaper then and more importantly the new Lumias will be better.

I would wait for the new Lumias for sure, but the thing is I'm still a medical student, so I don't really get paid. I only get a little money from the government for "good grades" and I don't want to waste my parents' money on my tech fascinations


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Thanks, everyone, for your replies!