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General discussion

Cellphones for VERY OLD PEOPLE

Oct 21, 2004 10:01AM PDT

help!
Does anybody out there know if/where it is possible to buy really old big cellphones?
I?m thinking of my mother who is 88 and does not have the eyesight of a teenager nor an eagle. Why on earth do those makers TOTALLY IGNORE THIS CORNAR OF THE MARKET??? These are NOT the people who benefit from ever smaller phones. I really regret not having kept my first - bulky - cellphone. It would have come in handy now.
gae

Discussion is locked

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Re: Cellphones for VERY OLD PEOPLE
Oct 21, 2004 11:54AM PDT

Check out eBay. There are lots of older phones for sale there. You can get one of those really old ones with big buttons, etc. for about $10 plus shipping.
Both my parents have seeing problems. I decided to get them a flip phone, this way if it rings they would just flip it open to answer and close it to hang up. No need to push any unnecessary buttons.
So I picked a Motorola v180, it has the buttons separated rather than all attached to each other, where even a normal sighted person can have difficulty dialing.
Also check out the motorola phones offered by Nextel. They seem to have larger than usual buttons.
I think you should stay away from the non-flip phones because they are always inadvertantly pushing buttons without realising and then they try to dial a number and always getting wrong number.
My parents had this problem with their Nokia phone, which otherwise was a very good phone.
Let me know how you make out.
hh

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Re: Cellphones for VERY OLD PEOPLE
Oct 22, 2004 10:47PM PDT

I agree with flipphone suggestion. Be aware that in the setup area, you can control the zoom and scroll functions which will make the screen lettering bigger, too.