Orange Nura, an affordable 4G smartphone suitable for blind users

Monday, 13 April, 2015

By Amóvil

The Orange Nura

The Orange Nura is an affordable and easy to use 4G smartphone that includes several accessibility features that renders it suitable for people with vision impairments, Deaf users and people with poor manual dexterity skills. Amovil has been able to review this device thanks to a loan by Orange.

Running on Android 4.4.2, it has a very elegant design with dimensions of 150 x 76 x 8.5 mm. However, its weight, 165 grams, makes it heavier than most smartphones in the market.

The handset comes with a 5.5-inches IPS display with 1280x720 pixels resolution. In addition, it includes an 8 MP rear-side primary camera and a 5 MP front-side secondary camera for videocalls. It also includes NFC technology.

Accessibility review

Vision

The Orange Nura is suitable for blind people. TalkBack, the built-in screen reader, reads most of the available visual content. However, there are a few minor flaws that may pose discomfort for some users. On one hand, if the text has abbreviations, the screen reader will not convert them into full words but will read them as it is. On the other, it cannot read some of the contents of the Calendar app.

People with low vision will also be able to use this device. It comes with an in-built screen magnifier and allows changing the size of fonts as well as customizing the screen brightness.

However, color blind users may have a limited experience. They will not be able to customize color contrast or reversing background and foreground colors.

Hearing

Orange provides no information about the Hearing Compatibility Rating of this device, so Amóvil is unable to recommend it to hard of hearing users who wear hearing aids or cochlear implants.

However, these users will be able to send and receive text messages as well as videocalls using apps such as Google Hangouts, Skype or any other messaging app compatible with Android OS.

Dexterity

The Orange Nura is accessible to people with poor dexterity skills. The physical buttons and the screen locking and unlocking system are easy to handle and very user friendly. It also has a good predictive text system and the volume control key is easy to reach during a phone call.

Notwithstanding, people with very little or no dexterity skills will have a hard time using this device. Although it includes Google Now a voice recognition feature that comes inbuilt in Android devices, it can only be used to browse the web. The app is not capable of opening the Settings menu upon command or of sending text messages or emails.

Additionally, controlling the device with assistive devices such as mouth sticks or head wands it is not possible. These users will not be able to turn the device on and off.

Comprehension skills

Some of the icons included in this device do not comply with accessibility standards, so Amóvil is unable to recommend it to users with poor comprehension skills.

However, a feature that may improve these users’ experience is the Orange Assistant app that provides easy to understand instructions about how to set up the smartphone. This assistant also shows how to carry out basic functions such as using the touch screen or the tactile keypad.

Additionally, users can choose between two different screen modes: the easy mode for first time users and the standard mode for experimented users. The easy mode offers one customizable panel that includes quick access to help and to settings. It also allows changing the size of the text without having to go to the accessibility menu.

For more information about the accessibility features in this device, please consult the full accessibility report available in Amóvil.

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