Call me

I first had the idea to write this blog following my experience of trying to upgrade my mobile phone.  I walked into my network providers high street store (B.C.) and asked them which smartphone was best to use with hearing aids (which I was still waiting for) or the hearing impaired.  I was met with blank stares, not only in this store but every other store I visited.  I came home and started to have a look on the internet and found that many of the recommended phones were a) not smartphones, b) from brands I have never heard of, and c) just plain ugly.  With so many people with hearing loss, you'd think that the big brands would have the technology to make using their products easier and that the information would be easy enough to find.  This, I quickly realised was not the case and I remember thinking to myself - I wish there was somewhere that reviewed, rated and recommended which phone was the best for my situation.  Then I thought to myself, why don't I do it - so here I am folks, trying to give some practical consumer advice! 

Things have become a little more complicated since I had this idea.  Obviously it's a lot harder to actually get into stores and have a play around with the phone to check out the functionality.  However, I still thought it would be worth sharing the information I've gathered.

First of all I must point out that I have not received any form of payment or received any products from any of the brands mentioned below.  Secondly, I prefer Android phones and am biased towards the functionality of these - I currently own a Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite which I purchased shortly after lockdown online.  I had done a lot of research on phones prior to this and felt the Samsung phones were the best Android phones to cater to my needs.  In fact the only other phones I was aware of that have any features for the hearing impaired were the Apple iPhone and the Google phones.

Other than Apple, none of the big mobile phone companies have their own branded store in my locality, so it was always going to be difficult going to the manufacturer to gain specific knowledge.  As lovely as network provider and generic phone store staff are, they do not have specific brand knowledge for every phone they carry.  So I decided to contact the manufacturers directly through the magic of social media and the results were very mixed.

I set out on Twitter to contact the big 5 mobile phone brands:

Out of the 5 only 2 responded, which makes me think that the others simply don't give two figs about their customers with hearing impairments (there must be a fair few of us!).

Apple responded first with a handy link to their webpage dedicated to the accessiblity features of the iPhone for the hearing impaired.  To be honest, I was very impressed with this and if it were not for my own feelings about the Apple brand, I would probably look at an iPhone as my next upgrade. 

The only other company to respond was Samsung.  Knowing about the functionality already, I was a little disappointed that they had grouped all of the accessibility features onto one webpage and had to scroll down to find the relevant information.  In contrast to Apple, it just seemed less appealing to addressing my needs, however it was a personal response which I did think was a better customer service response.

So in conclusion, my recommendations for a mobile that caters for hearing loss/impairment would be either an iPhone or for the Android lovers a Samsung model from the Galaxy range S8 or above (as these all have the enhanced accessibility features although they do vary and improve with the newer models). 

To those mobile phone companies that either don't have specific features that assist with this issue or didn't respond I would say you need to take a good hard look at your technology and customer service - deaf people still use mobiles!!!