I welcome your thoughts, as I’m not capable of making a good decision right now.
Here is why if you are interested (it may not be nice to read).
My dad has an evil disease called Multiple Sclerosis - it slowly takes away all independence, starting with walking, leading to being chair/bed ridden. My mum is his full time carer (married in 1966), but over the last 3 nights he has had some problems and my mum just ran out of mental energy so I had to take over. Because I’m the only one that can safely lift him when paramedics need him in a bed, I get called an awful lot. I’ve spent the last few days working and the nights being with him, moving him from bed to chair, etc., and resolving his toilet issues and I am shattered beyond belief.
Her phone is old, updates change things and confuse her, the battery has been abused when it comes to charging and for my own sanity she needs a better one.
I’ve had Samsung Galaxy’s in the past, but recently switched to a Pixel 5 (used) and it’s really good.
I would like to buy her a brand new Pixel 6a, I should be able to pay for it myself but I might grab some money off my sisters (who sometimes help).
Normally we would hand down the oldest phone to people, but I am getting her a new one to reduce ‘support calls’ and ease her life. I will be pretending it’s one of my spare phones.
Now, I am biased and I welcome opinions about what other phones might be better or if my choice is ‘good enough’. I’m open to Apple if people thing that might be more sensible, though she is used to Android by now and that might cause me a whole world of pain.
My budget needs to be as low as possible, but I see the Google Pixel website has it for £300 which is OK (claims to have £100 off right now).
Thanks in advance people, please let me borrow your brain.
My grandma is pushing 90 and she wasn’t willing to learn how to use a cell phone, but I managed to get her to use it by enabling simple mode that came with it and explained things something along the lines of “imagine the screen as a window and whatever is on it as a large peace of paper you move trough the window to see whatever part you want. Buttons do things that label says they do.”
That with simple mode enabled left her with big icons on the home screen for phone, messages, gallery and shortcuts to call my dad, my brother and myself for emergencies. The phone is Huawei and it came with simple mode built in, but you should be able to achieve similar thing with any android and custom launcher, Big Launcher is targeting seniors with custom launcher, phone, SMS, alarm and other apps so it may help with UI consistency when switching phones. I’ve never used any of their products and I don’t know how good they are or if you need a subscription since it says it has in app purchases.
It’s a very old Huawei phone, I’m not sure if they still have that. Ever since no Play store thing we don’t get as many here. I just thought you may be able to replicate that experience with custom launcher and phone and messaging apps. That way UX can stay consistent (mostly) across devices.
User, sand, in my topic had some good advice if you want to stick to Android. I would think the app advice he gave should keep the phone’s UI somewhat the same even after OS updates, but I have zero experience. You can always PM him/her for more info.
I wanted to avoid ANY smart devices as my Grandparents just get trapped in menus, but also because the touchscreens have a hard time detecting Grandad’s leather fingers… and no, I’ve never seen that before either.
A friend mine got his mother, also in her 70’s, an iPhone and says she has had zero issues using it. He’s also received little to no requests for tech support.
When on a budget though, it’s a difficult choice to try and go with something unknown like switching to Apple from Android.
Apple devices do keep their value quite well though and you should be able to sell it for about the same as you bought it when buying second hand. Obviously, if you try and sell it a year later then the value would go down some, but if it doesn’t work after like 1-2 months then I would think you can sell it for about what you paid.
Sorry to hear about her situation. I guess it depends on if she uses her phone for more than making and answering phone calls. My mom is 51 years old and does just that, no e-mails or anything else. I could try and help narrow out brands or models that I’ve had experience with that weren’t very good or what others I know have had bad experiences with.
Apparently Samsung’s batteries are really not that good and give out in a few years. Although I got one for myself, I also got extended warranty that should cover that problem down the line.
Before that I had a Xiaomi. Had to factory reset it 3 times in 2 years due to software updates breaking it.
Before those two brands I had Huawei before the removal of Google services on it, as well as dirt cheap Sony Xperia. Both of those were perfectly fine at the time before the software updates; which from my experience have ruined most of my phones in one way or another.
Based on that you could look into them if you’re interested. I would’ve gotten a new Xperia as well, but found a great deal on my current phone in terms of price/performance. I don’t have experience with apple devices and you should definitely see, what others have to say as well.
EDIT: I saw Vivante mention a custom launcher and I’d like to add another one to that list. Look into Nova Launcher as well. It’s very customizable and I’ve ran the past 4 phones in almost identical configuration. My mom has used all of them occasionally as well and finds the consistency nice.
Cheers Tim, I think my mum is ok for the standard spying, for an easier experience, but yes, netguard will certainly be installed
Unfortunately she has become used to her smartphone, saves an old body going upstairs to the computer just to check a few words received in an email. I like your thinking though!
Thank you mate! It is a struggle at times, but it’s life, we just get on with it eh.
Thank you for that Nic, that’s a good topic
Yeah iPhone really does lower the support requirements of relatives, although different to Android, it’s not that different. I did just check the website and they seem to start at £650 over here (UK), I could get used and have had no issues in the past, but I want her to have the best reliability. She is a carer for my dad and at times it’s really important the phone works.
I do like your thinking about being able to easily sell it in a few months if it’s a no go, you are spot on there for sure. My only concern is the time spent selling items, to do the job morally and ensure the highest value is made, it takes a lot of time - time that for me, is better spent working (I get paid by the hour).
Thank you Katie, very kind.
Your listing of experiences and phone makes is very helpful.
You can look at the Xiaomi Redmi 9, it shouldn’t be that expensive. I had it in my hands and it is used by an elderly person. Ordinary smart with android 11 at an acceptable price.
Thanks Tim, that phone looks pretty decent and it’s available over in my neck of the woods. I’ll have a good think, only thing that veers me back to the pixel is the 0% offer and what I’d hope is longer support from the likes of the big G.
It’s as if you read my mind about remote access, thanks for bringing that thread to my attention!
I forgot to mention… If you decide to use NG then send me your query codes and I will generate you activation codes for the pro version. I pay for my codes so a few extra ones are not a problem.
https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard
All you have to do is install NG from git and then after starting, go to options (three dots on the right side up) click on “Pro features” and then “challenge” and then give me the code that is there.
I need this code to generate an activation code that I will give you on priv.
This code can be used once with this particular device.
Do you ever think about just how many times you are strongly encouraged to upgrade the hardware used in a “smart phone” over the years, and why?
Do you ever wonder why a Pentium I from 1993 can still run modern Linux on kernel 5.15 LTS, but with a smartphone you have to upgrade every four or five years?
Don’t you think that’s odd?
Ideas: Keep the A20 but put into a mode you probably haven’t considered:
Maximum power saving
This forces the interface dark wallpaper, with four unchangable apps, and four somewhat user-choice apps.
It is enough to have gallery, carrier sms app, notes, and a clock/alarm app.
I went through this same process with my father. He had been using an ancient Android that was falling to pieces and could not install any apps because the OS was so old and there were no OS updates available.
I also strongly, strongly suggested Pixel for him, in my case Pixel 7 since it was the flagship and I had plenty of cash to cover it. Pixel 6a seemed like a fine option as well.
Ultimately he did not follow my advice and instead bought yet another garbage overpriced obselete Android instead. Oh well.
Only reason I did not switch him to iPhone was because I felt the migration from an ancient phone to a new phone would be overwhelming enough, too much to ask him to do an entire ecosystem switch as well. Despite the rest of the immediately family (sans me) being on iPhone already.
Thanks @E-waste & @gc71 , back in February I did sort this out and my mum seems happy with the new phone…of course there having been some teething problems!
There’s certainly pressure to do that, in my mums case though, the phone was acting up quite a bit. At first I thought it was her old eyes and hand movements, but then I checked for myself. Basic apps were failing to run properly so I thought it was time to upgrade - the alternative was to spend a lot of my personal time to reset the phone, then make it ‘the way it was’, then have the continuous follow up questions about it. If it was my own phone, I’d definitely have reset and tried again!
That is a great idea, I have used that setting many times when I was away from power for extended periods. It certainly is a simplified GUI.
Sorry to hear that you share my pain! It is frustrating isn’t it, I hope you’re not suffering too much over the issue now.
