I’ve had my Doro PhoneEasy 615 for almost a week now and I’m very happy with my decision to move away from the Apple iPhone 3gs. The reason for me swapping was because I just needed to get back to a basic phone, one that just phones and texts without all the apps and internet distractions. The iPhone 3gs was fine for the whole time I had it, I used to VO or VoiceOver function on it and got along fine. I was just getting a bit annoyed with how slow the VO buffer seemed to be in conjunction with a refreshable braille display unit such as a BraillePen12. Anyone will tell you, if they know me that is, that I am the least patient person on the planet and I just wasn’t patient enough to wait for her to catch up, it made checking for mistakes a very long and slow process. VO on it’s own, perfect.

Now the Doro PhoneEasy 615 isn’t a smartphone but it is a smart phone. It has some really cool features such as ICE app which goes more in depth than just sticking ICE in front of your ‘need to contact in case of emergency nunbers’. It enables you to give more information such as name, age, height, weight, language, insurance, contact numbers, doctor’s number, allergies, medical information and blood type. The A, B, C keys are perfect for speed dial and the extra security button on the reverse is a great idea, especially for the elderly if they take a tumble or something, just a push of a button can call designated numbers down the list till someone picks up and activates the speed dial letting you get help asap. It’s also hearing aid complaint! with extra loud settings as well as a choice of 4 high contrast themes. White on Black, Black on White, Yellow on Black and Yellow on Blue. I watched a video review about it so it would save time with the manual and it paid off because I was using it straight out of the box and mum didn’t even have to pick the manual up!.

It came set up on White on Black which I prefer so I didn’t have to change anything except the text size, normal was fairly big to begin with but I prefer the large setting and it’s easily done. It has bluetooth and FM radio which is great, the ear phones, lanyard, mains charger and usb lead are provided in box. Colour choices are Black and Red. Black was the only one available from the RNIB website. The 3.2 mp camera is centralized, which always helps, the iPhones wasn’t and it isn’t on the iPad either which is just a plain nuisance. It’s a nice clear picture and makes taking pictures and setting them as contacts or wallpapers, fun. The flash and option for red eye reduction is good one for pet pics. At the moment Vodafone doesn’t have any picture message settings to send to me so I am unable to send pictures I take, but I can transfer them off to a computer using the USB lead and I could use the bluetooth option to send to a friend.

The text size is 26pt and nicely spaced for easy reading, the buttons are well contrasted and soft to the touch. I find I do have to press down quite hard to push the buttons, but I think it may just be because I’m used to touch screens that are highly sensitive. The choice of polyphonic ringtones are good there is something for everyone, it’s not all pop/rock or classical there’s a good mixture. I find the fact you can’t turn of the vibrate is a little downer, but you can shorten the length of it. I love the design of the stand up charger, it’s neat and compact, if you have the sound on it will beep when you put the phone into charge and when you take it out, it also flashes red, if you have it on silent, you will just see the light which changes to green when fully charged. The screen at the front displays the clock, but I haven’t discovered how to get it to last for more than a few seconds when you close the screen. The blue envelope is cool when you receive a message! I can’t read the name or the number that it displays when I receive a phone call but that is also a nice little touch if you have the sight to see it.

It took me awhile to figure out where the space was and it’s on ZERO other things will pop up but if you don’t select those it will space out for the next word. Star * is punctuation and Hash # switches from abc, ABC and 123.

When you flip the phone open the top left is ‘ok’ then you camera button in the middle, very easy one click to open the camera, another click on the same button to take a picture – that’s it!, top right is ‘back’.
Underneath that you have the green ‘pick up’ phone followed by the up and down arrow menu navigation buttons and the red ‘put down’ phone.
Underneath that you have A B C which can be used as speed dial, you can of course use the rest of 1-9 buttons as speed dials, but who seriously has that many speed dials? The message button follows that, it’s another quick key, like the camera key. One click and your in messages.

I did do a quick video on youtube but I’ve taken some pictures here, step by step of how to change the text and the colour theme. As always if you have any question or queries you can email or leave a comment.