Pantech Ease: A Touchscreen QWERTY Phone for Seniors

Touchscreen handsets have become more accessible to consumers this year. The number of handsets with touchscreen displays have significantly increased and the pricing for these phones have also become more affordable. And so it's only a matter of time before a touchscreen becomes a key feature of a cell phone for seniors.

Pantech, the maker of AT&T's Breeze and Breeze II mobile phone for senior citizens, is responsible for combining a touchscreen with a simplified handset. In coordination with AT&T, the manufacturer is set to release the Pantech Ease touchscreen cell phone for seniors.

This senior friendly phone sports a (3.2 inch) full touchscreen display and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard alongside features that are useful to the elderly. It offers two modes, Easy and Advanced, with the former obviously catering to users who want simplicity. The Easy Mode minimizes scrolling and highlights the features customers want to access most.

The Pantech Ease also features a highly visible large font. Senior users can increase or minimize the font of received messages with either touch or physical zoom in or out keys. This cell phone for seniors also offer a QWERTY keyboard which is easier to use than a normal text keypad. It has well spaced, backlit buttons that respond with a tactile click when pressed, and remain illuminated while in use.

Here are two quotes that will help to convince you that the Pantech Ease is a good cell phone for senior citizens:

Iain Gillott, president of iGR, a market research consultancy focused on the wireless and mobile industry states:

"The seniors market remains a significant opportunity for the operators to expand their businesses. But as iGR's research has found, the challenge is to provide a solution that meets the specific needs of the seniors with sufficient functions and capabilities yet is easy to use and intuitive. Our research has shown that seniors primarily want to make calls, to send and receive photos in text messages, to get driving directions and to read their email. And they want an attractive design that would make their family members envious - the Pantech Ease, with an easy-to-use interface developed collaboratively by AT&T and Pantech and attractive yet senior-friendly form factor, seems to address those needs squarely."

Jim Berridge, vice president of sales and marketing, Pantech Wireless:

"AT&T customers have come to rely on Pantech's ability to create phones that meet their unique lifestyle needs. Ease is a phone that incorporates the latest customer requests – a touch screen – yet does so in a manner which is easy to use. We have a winner with Ease and we're confident that customers will be impressed with both the design and functionality of this handset."

The Pantech Ease will be available on June 20th and will retail for $69.99 on contract after a mail-in rebate.

That's it for this new mobile phone for seniors. Tune in for more handset, plans and accessories for senior mobile users.