Communic8, a distributor of the Emporia Life handset, can’t find a carrier to support it or a store to sell it in. The £170 handset is now only available online. It features easy-to-use buttons, simple display screen and a large, red panic switch on the back. Charities for the elderly have accused the mobile industry of ageism for not stocking the phones.
This is a bit annoying to read, isn’t it? I know that pensioners aren’t exactly a huge growth industry, however I’m sure there’s a reasonable market for a lot of elder people who might like to use a big, simple, easy-to-read handset like the Emporia Life one.
I particularly like it’s emergency button function that’ll send a ‘help me’ text or place a call whenever it’s pressed. Genius.
Hardly a Nokia N95, however I like the look of the nice big buttons and the partially-sighted-friendly orange display.
I wish Communic8 and the Emporia team success. I’d like to see more hardware like this brought on to the market. The pensioner demographic is very poorly served — only Vodafone have their ‘Simple’ range. Every other operator forces it’s elderly customers to use new fangled whizzy devices that I love but which are entirely useless for this market.
More about the handset at
