Consumer Cellular GrandPad

In this social media era, some of our oldest relatives are getting left out of the baby-picture whirl. I constitute this with my own grandmother: While my mom is an avid Facebooker (and an "Instagrandma"), we would go on ordering upwardly printed pictures for Great-Grandma. And trust me, Peachy-Grandma wants to see the baby pictures. All of the infant pictures.

Consumer Cellular'due south new GrandPad ($200 up front end or $10 per month for 20 months, plus $40 per calendar month for unlimited use) is a highly customized tablet designed for elderly technophobes to be able to connect with their families. It's very interesting, and I haven't seen annihilation similar it in years. To some extent, the GrandPad is the evolution of the digital picture frame, or of the HP Presto, the printer you could email photos to. It's super-simplified net access for people who don't want to have to bargain with technology invented later than 1985.

Consumer Cellular, which with iii 1000000 subscribers is probably the nation'southward largest virtual carrier not owned by Tracfone, has had exclusive phones for its senior-heavy audition for a while. But the GrandPad is a new level of custom hardware for the carrier. The tablet has been soft-launched for a while, merely is getting a bigger release and a new price on May 14, after which we'll put it through our formal review process and assign it a rating.

How It Works

The viii-inch, 12.5-ounce GrandPad comes with a wireless charging dock that it sits in and that turns information technology into a kind of desktop or mantelpiece device. Yous don't need to connect it to a Wi-Fi network—it uses Consumer Cellular's network, which is the AT&T LTE network.

Technically, the GrandPad runs Android. But information technology doesn't work like Android. Information technology has a dramatically simplified interface with big icons for calls, electronic mail, photos, camera, manufactures, weather, music, encyclopedia, games, and a flashlight/magnifying glass. Yous tin can't add together apps.

The contact books and photo albums are all managed by a caretaking relative with a smartphone, who acts every bit a sort of gateway between the GrandPad user and the larger internet. All the content gets pushed to the GrandPad through the LTE connection without the user doing anything. Once the caretaker sets up the contact books, though, the GrandPad user can electronic mail and call people in it. The tablet tin can too only be called by people in the contact volume, so the caretaker can whitelist doctors, but exclude telephone scammers.

The device has powerful, front-facing speakers to act as a speakerphone, and a front-facing photographic camera for video calling. Emails can either be tapped out on an on-screen keyboard, or dictated and sent as vox mails.

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All of the other features appear to be tailored to the almost stereotypical interests of xc-year-olds. The games include blackjack, bridge, and hearts. The "articles" section is a curated RSS feed on topics like antiques, cats, and crafting. The streaming music selections include big band and classical—none of that modern stuff. (A caretaker tin add MP3s through the cloud, as well.)

Honestly, if my grandmother hadn't died recently, she'd probably love information technology.

The tablet is made by Acer, and spec-wise, information technology doesn't match upward with any other Acer product on the market in the US right now. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 2GB of RAM, an eight-inch, 1,920-by-1,200 LCD, and a 5MP rear camera. Consumer Cellular doesn't requite specs for the front photographic camera, but it isn't that loftier-res.

That's all adequate plenty for the job at mitt, and I don't think there volition be performance problems with the express feature set. Consumer Cellular says it'll have gratis back up reps on call then family members don't take to try to act as tech support.

The GrandPad isn't the kind of thing that people buy for themselves; it's something their relatives buy for them. It's not for older people who are fine with phones and other tablets—information technology's for the technophobic and asunder. I tin't call back of annihilation it actually competes with. Its success will ultimately come downwardly to whether or not it's simple enough to appeal to users who are otherwise completely resistant to technology. Check back for a full review soon.