[Electronics-talk] sprint phone accessility

[Steve Jacobson]

To try to answer the original question, there are a number of accessible phones that are available through Sprint.  A number of the Windows Mobile phones are 
accessible with the addition of a Windows Mobile screen reader.  A number of these are made by HTC, but there are several other brands as well.  These phones 
are more expensive and the screen reader is adds more to the cost.  Versions of these same phones are also available through Verizon although the models are 
sometimes different.

There are, or at least were a couple of LG phones available through Sprint that have built in speech for most but not all functions.  The LG Rumor 2 is one such 
phone, and I believe the LG Lotus also has this capability.  There are also corresponding LG phones available through Verizon which are, as far as I know, 
approximately the same with respect to accessibility.  Samsung has made phones with some speech capability in the past as well.  These phones seem to come and 
go, so one has to check.  Phones such as the Rumor 2 don't have a big accessibility sign on them so it is not always apparent to a sales person what you might be 
talking about.  Also, most phones now allow voice input, and often they think that's what you need.  The LG Rumor 2, for example, and some other LG phones, 
have something called "Voice Guide" which is different than "Voice Command."  Voice Guide causes some menus to speak and gives you access to call history, 
battery and signal levels and such.

I am using an HTC Snap S511 with Mobile Speak through Sprint and it works pretty well.  I also used the LG Fusik through Sprint some time back and it provided 
some accessibility but no access to text messages.  The LG Rumor 2 is said to allow the reading of text messages although I have not had much experience with 
that aspect, but it definitely does tell you which characters are being entered when you type data into a text field.  Like any of these "pretty accessible" phones, it is 
frustrating when you wander into an area of the phone that is not accessible, sometimes by accident.  These phones don't allow access to e-mail or web browsing.  
The Windows Mobile phones allow very complete access including web browsing and e-mail and of course text messages.  Like any of the fancier phones, though, 
they have to be reset sometimes.  Adding a screen reader probably makes this a bigger problem, but my kids both have phones without screen readers and have to 
reset them so some of this is simply due to the complexity of some of these newer phones and companies not debugging as well as they might.  Some of the more 
complex phones require that you have a data plan, too, and this can be expensive.  While requiring a data plan might be a way for the phone companies to get you 
to buy more of their services, these phones are sometimes updated via the wev and lose a lot of their usefulness without a plan.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:00:47 -0700, davidw wrote:

>Tom,

>I agree with you on the topic of Sprint.  As soon as my contract is up I'm 
>switching.
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Tom Evans" <tevans2003 at sbcglobal.net>
>To: "'Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances'" 
><electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 11:54 AM
>Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] sprint phone accessility


>>I had sprint for years and think it is garbage.  I had an accessible phone
>> that was poor.  I used it as a junk back up phone and finally turned it 
>> off
>> the other day.  here is their web that they don't even know about
>> http://www2.sprint.com/mr/gp_dtl.do?article=342
>> I have heard these phones to not be too good.  There is a Nextel one that 
>> is
>> ok, but Nextel infrastructure is a dying breed.  When my sprint barely
>> worked I got Verizon and been happy for years.  I travel a lot and find it
>> to work well.  The new talk is that Verizon is in negotiation with apple 
>> for
>> the iphone.  If that comes through I will get that.  Verizon has some 
>> basic
>> off the shelf phones that work and I have been happy for years.
>>
>> Final word for me personally, sprint is garbage and very happy with 
>> Verizon
>> as evidenced by accessible phones, connectivity, tech support, billing, 
>> ease
>> of use etc.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org
>> [mailto:electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of aleeha dudley
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 7:53 AM
>> To: electronics-talk at nfbnet.org
>> Subject: [Electronics-talk] sprint phone accessility
>>
>> Hi,
>> What is the most accessible sprint phone.  I would like a phone
>> that will text, read menus, and also read text messages.
>>
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