Jitterbug Touch (GreatCall)

Have you thought about getting a smartphone, but fear you won't know how to use it? GreatCall has just the phone for you. Sort of. Known for simple feature phones like the Editors' Choice-winning Jitterbug Plus, GreatCall is now offering the $149 Jitterbug Touch, a smartphone for seniors. The Jitterbug Touch is a keyboarded Android phone with a simplified user interface that makes it easier to understand for new users. Unfortunately, that new user interface is sometimes sloppy, and not everything is as simple as it should be. It's also running on dated hardware that hasn't aged gracefully. The Jitterbug Touch from GreatCall is an okay introduction to smartphones for seniors, but it isn't as simple as it should be.

Design, Call Quality, and Data Plans
The Jitterbug Touch is actually the same phone as the?Kyocera Milano? that we reviewed on Sprint over a year ago. Here it's been rebranded and loaded with GreatCall's simplified user interface.

As far as design goes, the Jitterbug Touch is identical to the Milano. It's short and squat, at 4.13 by 2.4 by 0.67 inches (HWD), and a bit heavy at 5.57 ounces. The back panel is made of a matte gray soft-touch plastic and features the GreatCall name and logo in black beneath an imprinted Kyocera logo.

The display is a 3-inch, 320-by-240-pixel touch panel, which is really starting to look lackluster. I dinged the Milano for this a year ago, and it only looks worse now. Compared with the display on a standard feature phone it isn't terrible, but this is about as low as you can go on a smartphone. The screen itself is too small, and the low resolution makes everything look fuzzy or jagged. It becomes a little easier to see when you crank up the brightness to the highest level, but the automatic setting is way too dark.

The Jitterbug Touch slides open to reveal a four-row QWERTY keyboard. It features keys that are well-sized, raised, and backlit. It's easy to type on, though the phone itself is short, so there isn't much room to stretch your thumbs out and really get going. Still, this phone will work just fine if you want to send text messages or emails.

There are four physical function keys below the display that work fine, though you can see the phone's backlight through them, which is annoying. There's a Power button and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on top of the phone, a Volume rocker and power port on the left, and a Camera shutter button on the right.

GreatCall uses Verizon's network. The Jitterbug Touch is a 3G device, but only hits EV-DO Rev. 0 speeds, which aren't as fast as EV-DO Rev. A and nowhere near as fast as 4G LTE. I saw data speeds of just 0.1Mbps down and 0.3Mbps up on the Jitterbug Touch, which is slow, even for EV-DO Rev. 0. But GreatCall's data plans are small, so this guarantees you won't be able to fly through your monthly allotment. The Jitterbug Touch also has 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.

Reception and voice quality are average. Voices sound somewhat scratchy and robotic in the phone's earpiece, but are still easy to understand and plenty loud. Calls made with the phone sound a little muted and grainy, and noise cancellation is poor. Calls were fine through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset, and standard Android voice dialing worked well. I had some trouble connecting to the headset, which I'll explain further below. The phone is also hearing aid compatible with an M4/T4 rating.?The speakerphone sounds good and is loud enough for outdoor use, and battery life was good at 9 hours and 57 minutes of talk time.

As for pricing, GreatCall's pay-as-you-go service plans start at $14.99 per month for 50 minutes, up to $79.99 per month for unlimited minutes, text messages, operator assistance, and voicemail. Otherwise, text messages are 10 cents each and voicemail costs an extra $3 per month.

Since this is a smartphone, you'll also want a data plan, which allows you to access the internet on the go. GreatCall's "Get Started" plan gets you 10MB of data for $2.49 per month. That sounds like a bargain, but keep in mind that 10MB of data won't go very far. You can use that up just by checking email. Calls do not consume data and you can always connect your phone to Wi-Fi, but if you plan to surf the Web on Verizon's network, GreatCall offers data plans up to 500MB per month for $25. The phone comes with an app to track your data usage, and if you go over your montly limit, it costs 20 cents per 1MB.

Android, Simplified UI, and Apps
The Jitterbug Touch is running Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread). Ordinarily, such an old version of Android would make me cringe, but it's been Jitterbugged past the point of recognition. GreatCall has simplified the OS with a new interface that makes it fast and easy to access often-used features.

When you turn the phone on, you get two main tabs at the top of the screen: Apps and People. Each of these tabs, as well as the other menus, are laid out in scrolling lists with large fonts, which makes it easy to figure out everything your phone can do. Apps is a list of the applications you plan to use the most. It comes preloaded with Phone, Messaging, Camera, and Gallery, which, if you're looking to keep things simple, are pretty much all you need. You can add and remove apps from this list as you please. The People tab, meanwhile, allows you to store your favorite contacts. There are also touch buttons on the bottom of the screen which open tabs for All Apps and GreatCall services.

(Next page: UI Issues, Hardware, Multimedia, and Conclusions)

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