Sony Ericsson T100: Not Accessible?

Sony Ericsson T100: Not Accessible?

My fiancee's dad bought a new mobile phone for himself; his first. Now he wants to exchange his Sony Ericcson T100 for my fiancee's phone: a Nokia. He faced the following problems (as told to me by my fiancee):

• keypad is too small
• can't read as characters are small
• screen (blue) is not bright enough
• problems with navigation.

Looks to me a classic case of ignoring users with impairments: my fiancee's dad wears specs and can't read small test. And the T100's keypad is not 'big' enough for an elderly gentleman (it may be for a teenager). Also, the blue screen is not a good idea for the simple reason that it will not offer optimal contrast for the text displayed on the screen. I haven't used the phone myself, so I can't comment on its navigation. I did search the web for reviews on the T100 and found some; given below are excerpts of reviews by users of mouthshut.com and CNET:

"This phone is useless it rings the numbers in the phone book by itself and is not user friendly. If you want my advice dont get a T100" -A CNET user (I think this is the speed-dial feature that's playing the spoil-sport - Suman)

"Actually the sound for incoming call or message(SMS) was not loud if compare with nokia3310 or 3315. When the volume is increased to a maximum (6/6), the sound is almost still same..."Another CNET user

"Not easy to use, missing some very very basic functions" "This phone is small. That's about the only good thing I can say about it. It's very slow when scrolling through the phonebook and lacks some very basic, useful things. For example I've yet to find a way to enter a phone number and save it straight away. Instead I have to enter the number, call it, hang up, and then save the number now that it's in the list of recently called numbers! I find that really disappointing because it's just a software feature. There are no manufacturing or physical constraints. As far as I can tell, the people who programmed the phone never really used it. Otherwise surely they would have spotted that lack? There are other things, too, like the text entry method seems to shift randomly from predictive to multi-tap in between writing text messages. Also, the one that I have has a fault where it just turns itself off (and yes, I do lock the keypad)."-A CNET user (Usability testing may reveal the different ways in which users would use your product; this review is a great example of users 'discovering' new ways to use a feature - Suman)

Out of the total 81 users on CNET, 26%(21 users) gave Sony Ericsson a 'Thumbs-Down'

"coming to the drawbacks, the keys are a little hard and it takes some time to get used to dialing, and also, u cannot have polyphonic ringtones, and even though there�’s a melody composer..." A MouthShut user

Conclusion: 26% of users (out of 81 people) giving a product a thumbs-down ought to be a matter of serious concern to the Sony-Ericcson combine. Firmware issues, as indicated by users, is not expected from someone like Sony or Ericsson. Me thinks that they should either shelve T100, or release a new version after fixing all firmware issues; and conducting usability and accessibility tests. Anyone from Sony-Ericsson listening?
Do you have any opinion on T100?
write to me: suman at sumankumar dot com

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