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Doro Liberto 810

Doro Liberto 810 Review – Doro makes brilliant, easy-to-use phones with excellent accessibility features for the elderly. This latest one is an Android smartphone with a set of features aimed squarely at seasoned novices.

Doro Liberto 810, An Android phone for the elderly let down by its hardware

Doro-Liberto-810 Doro Liberto 810

Doro Liberto 810

When you turn on the Liberto 810 for the first time you are guided through a very simple setup wizard, which is followed by an excellent tutorial explaining all the buttons and controls – a must for any first-time smartphone owners.

The Doro Liberto 810 uses the Android 4.1 Operating System, modified to accomodate a special doro interface that’s supposed to make android easier to use – but the result were mixed.

If you are buying the phone for an inexperienced relative or friend, you can remotely configure all the phone’s settings yourself via the Doro Experience website. Another handy addition is the option to add icons for three of your favourite contacts to the home screen. Once added, simply tap one to quickly text, call or email that person. Frustatingly, typing was difficult as doro’s keyboard is cramped and inaccurate, often registering incorrect key strokes.

Both the home screen and Doro’s customised apps have good-sized buttons and text designed for those with poor eyesight. Some of the apps are clunky to use, though, and suffer from awkward controls and a lack of features. These can of course be replaced with alternative apps from Google’s Play Store, but if Google’s huge choices is bewildering, there is a more manageable selection of the most popular apps in the Doro Selection Store.

The phone’s biggest flaw is that it feels frustatingly sluggish with a touchscreen that is laggy and unresponsive. This is mostly down to the very slow single-core 1GHz processor, which is hobbled further by a megare 512 MB of memory.

Battery life was short, lasting just over six hours when playing videos. The five-megapixel camera was poor, even in bright daylight, producing smeared, out-of-focus shots with washed-out colours. The 4in touchscreen has a low resolution of just 800×480 pixels so text is not very sharp. Viewing angles were also terrible, so unless held exactly square on it was difficult to see anything.

Call quality was okay but not especially loud and clear, even when turned up to maximum volume. Callers complained that our voice sounded quiet and distant. The 810 is not compatible with hearing aids, which is disappointing – though the company said it hoped to introduce hearing-aid support in future.

Doro’s customised Android interface shows promise, but needs refinement. Our main problem with this phone, however, is abysmal hardware that makes the phone almost unusable. A smartphone designed for the elderly is a great idea, but this slapdash, half-baked phone does not do that idea justice.

Doro Liberto 810 Specification

  • 3.5in 800×480 pixels touchscreen
  • 1GHz single-core processor
  • 512 MB memory
  • 4 GB storage
  • 3G, full size SIM
  • Android 4.1 Jelly bean
  • 132g Weight
  • Dimension 126x66x13mm (HxWxD)
  • Price $ 180

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