In this social media era, some of our oldest relatives are getting left out of the baby-picture whirl. I found this with my own grandmother: While my mom is an avid Facebooker (and an "Instagrandma"), we would keep ordering up printed pictures for Great-Grandma. And trust me, Great-Grandma wants to see the baby pictures. All of the baby pictures.
Consumer Cellular's new GrandPad ($200 up front or $10 per month for 20 months, plus $40 per month for unlimited use) is a highly customized tablet designed for elderly technophobes to be able to connect with their families. It's very interesting, and I haven't seen anything like it in years. To some extent, the GrandPad is the evolution of the digital picture frame, or of the HP Presto, the printer you could email photos to. It's super-simplified internet access for people who don't want to have to deal with technology invented later than 1985.
Consumer Cellular, which with three million subscribers is probably the nation's largest virtual carrier not owned by Tracfone, has had exclusive phones for its senior-heavy audience for a while. But the GrandPad is a new level of custom hardware for the carrier. The tablet has been soft-launched for a while, but is getting a bigger release and a new price on May 14, after which we'll put it through our formal review process and assign it a rating.
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How It Works
The 8-inch, 12.5-ounce GrandPad comes with a wireless charging dock that it sits in and that turns it into a kind of desktop or mantelpiece device. You don't need to connect it to a Wi-Fi network—it uses Consumer Cellular's network, which in this case is the T-Mobile LTE network.
Technically, the GrandPad runs Android. But it doesn't work like Android. It has a dramatically simplified interface with big icons for calls, email, photos, camera, articles, weather, music, encyclopedia, games, and a flashlight/magnifying glass. You can't add apps.
The contact books and photo albums are all managed by a caretaking relative with a smartphone, who acts as a sort of gateway between the GrandPad user and the larger internet. All the content gets pushed to the GrandPad through the LTE connection without the user doing anything. Once the caretaker sets up the contact books, though, the GrandPad user can email and call people in it. The tablet can also only be called by people in the contact book, so the caretaker can whitelist doctors, but exclude phone scammers.
The device has powerful, front-facing speakers to act as a speakerphone, and a front-facing camera for video calling. Emails can either be tapped out on an on-screen keyboard, or dictated and sent as voice mails.
All of the other features appear to be tailored to the almost stereotypical interests of 90-year-olds. The games include blackjack, bridge, and hearts. The "articles" section is a curated RSS feed on topics like antiques, cats, and crafting. The streaming music selections include big band and classical—none of that modern stuff. (A caretaker can add MP3s through the cloud, as well.)
Honestly, if my grandmother hadn't died recently, she'd probably love it.
The tablet is made by Acer, and spec-wise, it doesn't match up with any other Acer product on the market in the US right now. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 2GB of RAM, an 8-inch, 1,920-by-1,200 LCD, and a 5MP rear camera. Consumer Cellular doesn't give specs for the front camera, but it isn't that high-res.
That's all adequate enough for the task at hand, and I don't think there will be performance problems with the limited feature set. Consumer Cellular says it'll have free support reps on call so family members don't have to try to act as tech support.
The GrandPad isn't the kind of thing that people buy for themselves; it's something their relatives buy for them. It's not for older people who are fine with phones and other tablets—it's for the technophobic and disconnected. I can't think of anything it really competes with. Its success will ultimately come down to whether or not it's simple enough to appeal to users who are otherwise completely resistant to technology. Check back for a full review soon.
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