AT&T is supposed to be offering Mobile speaks to their blind customers in the Nokia N75 phone. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get anywhere with them though. If your contract is up consider talking with Verizon because they offer phones at no extra charge and have speech built in already. ----- Original Message ----- From: Victor Gouveia To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 7:26 AM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Cell Phone
Hi Tom, There are several models you might want to go with, depending on what you are looking for in a cell phone. If you're not looking to pay an arm and a leg for cell phones, and aren't looking for major text to speech functions, there are the LG line of phones, most notably, the 5300 and the 8300, although the latter, from what I hear, is a bit more difficult to use. Both these phones come with speech built in, meaning you don't have to install any third party screen readers, and will perform the same functions your current phone provides. The menus provide speech to about 2 to 3 levels into the menus, but that's as far as it goes. You do not get speech to read incoming text messages or e-mail, but you do have speech when adding a contact and stuff like that. The next step up from that, is to go with a screen reader called Mobile Speaks. They have a list and range of cell phones that their product will install on, and for now, there are three types of cell phones on the market that this software will work with, those being the Symbiant series of cell phones, cell phones running the Windows Mobile operating system, and yet other cell phones classed as smart phones. A T & T does offer a package that will have them install the software on the phone before it gets to your house, so you don't have to do anything, you just pick up the phone, possibly install the sim card and you can use your phone right out of the box. The next level up is a screen reader called Talks, made by the same people who make OmniPage Pro and the Real Speak voices for Jaws, Nuance. Talks will run you about 200 dollars, and I'm not sure if A T Y& T will install it for you or not so you can use the phone right out of the box. Talks mainly runs on Symbiant series phones, and sounds exactly like Jaws, as they both use the same synthesizer, Eloquence. Both Mobile Speaks and Talks provide you full functionality with the phones, meaning you can edit and read the contact lists, you can send and receive text messages, even create single and multiple messages, you can create, send and read e-mail messages, most phones that will run talks have calendars and extra software that comes with the phone, like calculators and such, and both screen readers give you access to these applications, so, in essence, they give you complete accessibility to the cell phone. Both Mobile Speaks and Talks both also have a screen magnifier, which will enlarge the text on the phone giving you equal accessibility. I should note that all three of these options can be purchased with or without a contract, you're just looking at purchasing a more expensive phone for your buck. As always whether you buy these phones with a contract or not will heavily depend on how much you will pay for the phone and the software. For example, in most cases, the LG line of phones are free with a contract, and I do believe that certain phone companies do not lock their phones on their networks. Others do, which means that after the contract is over, and should you wish to take your phone with you to another provider, you will have to pay to have your phone unlocked, which can run you anywhere between 7 to 60 bucks. All three of the options above have their own e-mail lists where you can obtain help on how they work, and I can probably get you the subscription information on all three, just let me know which one you want and I'll go look for it. I should also let you know that A T & T does have a disability department, which sometimes know what the heck they're talking about, depending on the agent you get, and I have included the number below. Hope this helps you. The number for A T & T disability department is: 1-866-241-6568 Victor Gouveia [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
