DoroPhoneEasy 100W Single DECT Cordless Phone with Amplified Sound and Big Buttons (White)

The phone is aimed primarily at the elderly. Many elderly people have degrees of dementia, deafness, poor mobility and poor fine motor control due to arthritis. I have almost lost my sanity trying to help my Mum use this phone:Mum’s mobility is poor, so I bought 5 of the phones for around the house, so she wouldn’t be tempted to hurry to answer and be at risk of falling. There are 5 musical ring tones and 5 shrill tones to select from. I’ve chosen the musical tones so that she can distinguish which family members are ringing before she reaches the phone. As all the shrill tones are similar, and all unpleasant, I’ve kept them for non-family calls. Most of Mum’s non-family calls are silent or hoax calls, so the shrill tones act as a warning to be cautious. Yet for some inexplicable reason the musical tones are designed to continue ringing for 9 seconds after the call has been answered. WHY??? This is obviously confusing for an elderly person who is trying to hear the caller while all the other phones are still ringing, and the volume of their tone, necessarily high to accommodate deafness, drowns out the voice of the caller!!!Mum is quite hard of hearing, so we needed a phone with a volume boost. But the boost is designed to be de-activated at the end of each call to “avoid harming people with normal hearing”. However, in practice the boost does not increase the volume higher than if the phone is on speaker, it boosts the CLARITY. So the elderly person needs to press this button every single time they answer or make a call. But the button is located on the side of the phone, and the user needs to have enough presence of mind and manual dexterity to turn the phone on its side, and then to turn it back to check that the light has illuminated, and turn it again to re-press if it has not. On precisely the other side of the phone to the boost button, the volume button is located, so in grasping the phone this is activated and the volume randomly goes up and down.I don’t know what equipment Doro have to measure the volume of the Boost function, but I can guarantee it’s not fit for purpose. Other family members agree the volume is not particularly high while using it (we all have normal hearing). Why oh why must they vastly over-complicate the use of the boost function when it is useful to increase the clarity of the call, which on speaker is very slightly louder but with more distortion and hiss?These bizarre design features which seem to have been insufficiently tested by the people the phone is aimed at turn what could have been an excellent phone into one which is taking my Mum at least, weeks to get used to in order to be able to use reliably for safety as well as being able to keep in touch. We are far from there yet and she has lost rather than gained confidence in being able to both answer and make calls.

We bought this as a simple phone for an elderly lady who has very poor eyesight as well as failing hearing. She also has some loss of feeling in her hands. For weeks shes been telling us she sometimes can't make phone calls - we've only just realised that the reason for this is that she's accidentally pressed the star button and locked her keypad - why make it so easy to do something so critical?The display is too small for someone with poor eyesight and the symbols are so tiny that you need 20 20 vision to recognise them. Sound boost button is essential as only bats can hear the phone when its working normally.Hard to imagine how anything could be so disappointing and badly designed - avoid this phone and avoid the brand!

Not at all happy with the volume on this phone and have to use the booster button on the side each time I get a phone call (admittedly I have a slight hearing loss in my left ear), but even other people say the sound is quite distant when I am speaking to them and they can hear a crackle and also it is not very loud. I thought this phone being a Doro would be a good quality one but am considering purchasing a Panasonic which I had before.

My mum is really pleased with the phone especially the clear numbers and the automatic answer facility noore hunting for the green and red buttons. We bought the 100w duo and a single 100w so she has a phone in the hall, by her chair and also bedside wish I had thought about this type of phone earlier. I had a problem linking the extra phone but I phoned the helpline and the guy who answered was excellent and had it all set up in seconds........the same person had given me advice on the best phone for mum's needs. I didn't get his name but I was delighted with his knowledge and customer service was 100%. Thanks very much Doro.

I bought this phone for my partially sighted 87 year old Mum to improve her life. The buttons are big and easy to see/feel. The screen is hopeless for partially-sighted people and should not be described as suitable. It looks like old calculator technology with stick lines from 50 years ago. Is this a joke? The screen is quite large and backlit but the characters are so thin and spidery that even I can barely see it. Partially-sighted people need strong, black numbers and letters in the display section!Come on Doro - you have a good name in the industry - you can do better than this.Will be returning