Doro’s new 2018 phones offer the elderly a proper 4G and Android experience
Doro unveiled a pair of new handsets at MWC 2018, the Doro 7060 and Doro 8035, which will sit alongside its current best-seller, the Doro 6520. Here’s what you really need to know about Doro’s latest efforts, which are likely to be among the best elderly phones of the year.
The Doro 7060 is the company’s new ‘smart’ feature phone, which is intended as a “stepping stone towards a smartphone,” I was told.
Its clamshell design will be familiar to many people of a certain age (I include myself) but what distinguishes it from previous generations of Doro feature phones is that it comes with 4G connectivity and social media app availability – though unconfirmed, these are likely to include most of the big players, namely Facebook.
It feels good to hold thanks to a nicely textured backplate, which should mean it’s easy to hold on to, and there’s a a neat new ‘Boost’ feature that amplifies the volume of your calls by 6-7 decibels in just two taps. Battery life is being promoted as ‘all-day’ which you’d expect given the stripped back functionality.
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The Doro 7060 release date is scheduled for May 2018, with pricing set to be in the £80-90 region SIM-free, though it will also be available for free on contracts from £10 a month from a number of major UK and Irish networks. It comes packaged with a dedicated charging cradle, something the firm told me helps people with dexterity issues.
The Doro 8035 is its smartphone brethren and will be available from March 2018 for £120-125 outright, or free from contracts starting at around £15.
It has a more modern design and expanded feature set but, taking the mindset of the target market, I found it a bit slippery to grasp, in all honesty. Still, it wouldn’t look out of place in a pair of skinny jeans.
The coolest thing here, though, is that as well as offering Doro’s simplified user interface, it’s able to boot up an enlarged (near) stock Android experience complete with full Play Store access. There’s also a remote access application that allows you to take control of the device and help older friends and relatives get the most out of their new tech.
These two new phones join the Doro 6520, a 3G clamshell number, to give the company a tidy selection of devices across the elderly phone spectrum.
We’ll be reviewing them in full in the near future, so stay tuned for more beyond these early impressions.
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