Today, I am going to be highlighting a new cell phone from Raz Mobility. Based on my brief hands-on demo, information from their website and my reading so far I am pretty impressed. It is an accessible ‘basic’ cell phone (the non-smart variety) designed for individuals with various disabling conditions including: blindness, low vision, dexterity challenges, and/or seniors. This phone is the big button variety that you looks quite similar to something would have been more commonly available pre-5G or even pre-4GLTE!
Let’s get to the device features — wow for a non-smart cell it is jam packed! To start, the phone has an amplified speaker for individuals with hearing challenges that need a boost. Other accessible and helpful features: an SOS button, an audio guide for visually impaired users, talking watch, accessible buttons and premium speakers for clarity. Finally, I would like to mention the overall design of the phone it is pretty sturdy, appears very well built and looks like it could withstand quite a few falls/drops.
My personal experience, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to tryout a demo model of this phone a few months back and despite it being extremely basic in design, it was terribly pragmatic. For the intended target audience, I feel that Lucia is a great non-smart solution as it is easy to use, requires minimal programming, and next to nothing set up time. I love the nice clear speech output from the keys (and the audio guide), the easy to press buttons, the large view-able screen, and the overall accessibility of the cellphone.
Finally, this is definitely a helpful phone for individuals with certain conditions and/or seniors. Overall I think this phone is a winner, especially for those folks that don’t want to go the smart-phone ‘route.’
