What is the Red Dot With On Consumer Cellular Smart Easy Phone

For seniors, smartphones can seem intimidating due to tiny text, low earpiece book, and complicated software and menus. The $200 Doro 824 SmartEasy is built with these concerns in mind. Available on Consumer Cellular, the 824 SmartEasy has large, highly visible apps and icons, a loud, but clear, earpiece for calls, and customized software that guides you lot through the nuts of using apps. Throw in an Emergency Alarm button, and the 824 becomes a great option for both seniors and first-fourth dimension smartphone users alike, and our Editors' Choice for uncomplicated smartphones.

Blueprint and Display
The 824 SmartEasy'southward design stands out, melding a combination of physical buttons, heavy branding, and a black-and-blue color scheme on a polycarbonate body (the phone is also bachelor in all black). At 5.74 by two.85 by 0.40 inches (HWD) and 5.54 ounces, the 824 has roughly similar dimensions and weight to the Huawei Vision iii (five.68 past 2.86 by 0.36 inches; v.64 ounces) and the Motorola Moto G ($129.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) (5.59 past 2.85 by 0.48 inches; 5.47 ounces). It's easy to agree and use in 1 mitt, and the physical buttons on the front, side, and back are all within easy accomplish.

The front of the 824 consists of a 5-inch i,280-by-720 LCD. It looks clear, with big icons and text making it actress visible for users with poor eyesight. The display gets bright enough to utilize outdoors and viewing angles are skilful. Overall, it'southward a solid display for the price.

In a higher place the screen, y'all'll find the earpiece and a Doro logo. Below the screen is a concrete Home button in the middle, surrounded by an Options push on the left and a Back button on the right, all of which are satisfyingly clicky. They are also backlit, and the Habitation push has a dimple so you can find it more hands.

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On the right border of the phone y'all'll find a volume rocker, power push, and camera button, all of which are clearly labeled. Only the Photographic camera push feels somewhat mushy in comparison with the more responsive power and volume controls. The bottom is home to a micro USB charging port and the superlative has an sound jack. The left side has dock connectors, intended for use with the included charging dock.

On the back, there's a prominent Consumer Cellular logo and a metallic strip with a speaker and another Doro logo. You'll also observe a camera with a single LED flash. The dorsum panel peels off to give you access to a removable battery, a SIM card slot, and a microSD bill of fare slot that worked with a 64GB Leef Pro card ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . Doro has disabled moving apps onto SD cards, so you're mostly limited transferring music and photos.

You lot'll as well find the Emergency Assistance push button on the back. Pressing the push 3 times will automatically make a call to the contact of your choice. The button is flush against the back, so I never accidentally pressed it when the phone was in my pocket.

Network Functioning and Audio
Consumer Cellular is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that uses AT&T and T-Mobile's towers. The carrier has done very well in PCMag's Readers' Selection poll several years in a row.

The phone supports GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), UMTS (850/1800/1900/2100MHz), and LTE (2/iv/5/17) bands. It operated on T-Mobile's network during our testing in midtown Manhattan, where information technology maintained strong connectivity. Indoors, I saw download speeds range from 3Mbps to 6Mbps. Outdoors, I got a high of 20Mbps. Upload speeds were unusually strong, averaging around 20Mbps both indoors and out.

Call quality is excellent. Transmissions are clear, with a natural tone that doesn't suffer from any distortion or garbling. Earpiece volume is loud, and you lot shouldn't have whatsoever trouble hearing what the person on the other end is saying. Noise cancellation is also potent. I couldn't detect any background noise when making calls on a crowded city street.

Wi-Fi is unmarried band, and there'due south no NFC, but that'due south to be expected of phones in this toll range. Bluetooth and wired audio are both of decent quality, and there are three audio profiles—Normal, High, and Hearing Assistance Compatible (M3/T4). The speaker gets very loud, though information technology sounds rather tinny. It's loud enough to hear voice calls in noisy environments, but I don't recommend using information technology for music.

Processor and Battery
The 824 has a Snapdragon 410 processor clocked at 1.2GHz with 1GB of RAM, which is on par with the Moto G. It scored 19,980 on the AnTuTu benchmark, which tests overall organisation functioning. That'due south a scrap lower than the Moto G (25,166), though the phone is still perfectly fine for most common tasks.

The 824 tin can handle a certain degree of multitasking, though you'll hit the RAM usage limit if you try to do too many things at in one case. It's not the fastest with launching apps, but information technology was capable of handling everything I threw at it—including texts, phone calls, pictures, using Facebook, Gmail, Google Maps, Hangouts, YouTube, and Uber. The only thing it isn't expert at is gaming—the phone ran out of memory while running GFXBench, which tests graphics adequacy. I besides wasn't able to test it with Asphalt viii or GTA San Andreas, as the phone lacks sufficient internal retention to install these games.

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Bombardment life is fine, merely nada special. The phone clocked 4 hours and 24 minutes in our battery examination, in which we stream total-screen video over LTE at maximum brightness. That'due south on par with the 5.v-inch Jitterbug Smart ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) (4 hours and 16 minutes). All-solar day apply shouldn't be much trouble, particularly with the handy charging dock that lets you put your phone correct on your desk or nightstand and utilize it every bit an alert clock. And the bombardment is removable, so you can always swap it out for a fresh pack if you need more juice.

Software and Apps
Software customizations are a fundamental selling signal of the Doro 824—information technology runs a heavily altered version of Android 5.one Lollipop. The changes are intended to brand the phone easier to arroyo for seniors and kickoff-time users. Icons are large and distinctive, and everything is clearly labeled with big text that spells out what each app does. The overall look resembles Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, with a tile setup for apps and widgets.

The main screen has a few key apps you are likely to apply, similar the Play Store, Phone, Messages, and Camera. You swipe left or right to get to other screens, and there are on-screen buttons for apps and the principal menu. All the stock apps like Camera, Email, Gallery, and Messages come up with a helpful walkthrough when you launch them, explaining how to do things like sharing pictures or sending texts.

If you desire even more assistance, you lot can use the My Doro Manager(Opens in a new window) app to get assist from select contacts. Helpers need to download the My Doro Manager app themselves, and once connected y'all cull the level of permission to grant them. Helpers can share content with you lot, provide tech back up, and fifty-fifty configure settings for y'all.

Enabling Easy way in the Settings card makes things even more basic. Icons and text become even bigger, and your selection of available apps is whittled down to the virtually essential ones similar Alarm, Camera, Calculator, and Email. Yous can always switch between this mode and the regular mode equally y'all become comfortable.

While all of these software customizations brand the 824 easier to apply, there are also some downsides. You can't switch to a standard version of Android as yous can with the Huawei Vision 3, and this modified version doesn't let y'all to freely rearrange apps, habitation screens, and widgets. In improver, the software load is pretty is heavy—of the 8GB of internal storage, you but have 4.5GB available.

Camera and Conclusions
The eight-megapixel rear-facing camera is generally unimpressive. Information technology tin take decent photos in well-lit settings, but in less-than-ideal conditions, it suffers from patches of dissonance or blur. Indoors, pictures are softer than they are noisy. Color reproduction is fairly authentic, but favors starker colors. The rear camera is also capable of recording stable 1080p video at 30fps. The 2-megapixel front end-facing camera is a fleck stronger; it takes articulate, detailed selfies and is skilful for video chat.

For first-fourth dimension users and seniors, the Doro 824 SmartEasy on Consumer Cellular is an excellent option. Its concrete controls, clearly labeled apps and icons with step-by-step explanations, and the My Doro Manager app make for an intuitive, comprehensive feel. Information technology's a better bet than the Huawei Vision 3, which isn't quite every bit tailored to new users. And information technology'south even simpler to utilize than the Jitterbug Smart on GreatCall, which also lacks an Emergency Alarm button. That makes it easy to telephone call the Doro 824 SmartEasy our new Editors' Option for unproblematic smartphones.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/doro-824-smarteasy-consumer-cellular

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