Intex Vision, to my knowledge, is the only phone in India that has been designed for the visually impaired. However, the design of the phone is not new as a similar phone was launched by iBall, named as Senior. The only difference is that the former comes with Braille letters on its keypad.
The built quality of the phone is nothing great. But, the plastic body offers enough grip and the light weight of the phone ensures that it is easy to hold and helps it survive few falls on the ground.
There are four physical keys on both sides of the phone and one SOS button at the back of it. On the right side, there is a torch switch and a phone lock switch. While, volume rocker and radio keys are on the left side.
All the switches protrude out of the body just enough for you to operate them without the need to see them. Also, placing keys on the sides make things easy especially since the screen is good only for 12 digit number and not much of menu options are there. In any case, the menu should and has been kept as simple as possible as the phone is meant for people who cannot see things properly.
The menu consists of only five options: messages, multimedia (radio and music player), settings, phonebook, and call centre (call logs). To keep the matters simple there are only two navigation buttons and one each of call/Ok and call end/back button.
The Braille keypad has huge multitap buttons which give enough feedback when pressed. The phone also speaks what is being typed but this feature is limited to the numbers and does not work for other features including messages. This feature can be disabled also.
The SOS button, at the back, is big and orange in colour. When the button is pressed, the phone sends out SMS to four pre determined numbers.
There is also a hearing aid feature, which converts the ear phone into a hearing aid and amplifies the surrounding sound that helps elderly people with hearing loss. The feature works pretty well in amplifying the voices without much distortion.
Other features of the phone include wireless radio, 3.5 mm jack, Nokia type charging port, Micro USB port and expandable memory slot (8 GB). The phone has also slot for two SIMs.
The battery is of 800mAH, which is good for powering the device for two days of medium use. Phone and SMS memories can hold 1,000 contacts and 250 messages respectively. One of the good thing of Intex Vision is that the phone now supports Hindi, which was not the case earlier.
Verdict and Price
The phone is excellent in its intended purpose – it will certainly be of help to people with hearing and visual impairments and even other people, especially elderly will find it useful for its simple user interface.
What makes a stronger case for Intex Vision IN2020 is its price – at Rs 2,500, it is very affordable for a special purpose phone. The similarly designed iBall Senior is priced at Rs 3,500. I would certainly recommend it for people whom it is intended for.