After Iphone 4s announced. Its my best decision to buy iPhone for my mother, now she can do everything.
Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
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Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#12We got my 80yo grandma a low-end android (I think it runs 3.x android?) tablet with keyboard-cover. It took some learning on her side and sometimes answering some really confusing tech-support questions on my side (i.e. I was reading news and suddenly everything dissapeared, how do I get everything back?)
She basically uses the tablet as her Hangouts machine and sometimes she reads news. She likes the keyboard-cover, as she was a touch-typist when still working 25 years ago.
In your place, I would probably talk to her, if the chromebook she already has wouldn't be the best solution, re-configuring it in a way that the she wouldn't need to remember the login password and wifi-password should be doable.
If she really wants a phone, I would buy something with large enough screen, sturdy, with a good grip and affordable enough to be replaced once every year. I would choose operating system I would be able to do tech support for on the phone.
Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#13i would say ipad. 1. Bigger display. 2. Lesser chances of clicking the unknown. 3. When things are bigger, they look more friendly.
Also at 78, she is probably farsighted so needs to see bigger text. There's an iOS setting for that. But it doesn't work so well for browsers.
I wish mobile browsers would let you increase text size and not magnify/zoom. I remember old Android browsers let you before. And of course there is the Javascript Safari hack. It's just they aren't permanent.
Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#14Mi phones come with a Lite mode -- aimed at senior users.
Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#15On a side note, would amazon echo or google home be a better option?
Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#16Jolla will be launching new version of the Sailfish OS this quarter, aimed for 4G-enabled feature phones. You could try that.
I'm currently using Sailfish OS 2.1.4.14 on my Intex Aqua Fish and the experience so far (last 1.5 years) is so good that I've decided to never use Android phones in future. (Brief - No home and back button wasting your time, just have simple gestures to navigate to different menus etc.)
PS: Sailfish OS can also run almost all Android apps.
Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#17On a side note, would amazon echo or google home be a better option?
I don't think it's ready for prime time and you can't read email on it.
Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#18I would recommend windows phone.
Re: Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother?
#19I'm considering buying the recently-released Nokia 8110 for each of my parents.
Good things:
- 4G
- Physical keypad
- Google just invested in KaiOS, so the main Google apps will probably be available on the device
Bad:
- Limited apps, e.g. there are rumours WhatsApp will be available soon, but I haven't seen any announcement.
- No QWERTY keyboard, even on screen.