Doro 6520: Plans | Pricing | Specs

With a flip-phone design, easy-to-press buttons and a raft of accessibility features, the Doro 6520 is a simple alternative to the complexities of modern smartphones.

Contrary to what companies like Apple and Samsung would have you believe, some people don't need a $1,000 supercomputer hanging out in their pocket 24 hours a day. All those high-resolution cameras, enormous touch screens and powerful processors that modern smartphones tout might sound flashy on paper, but they're ultimately luxury features that add significant complexity and cost to the humble mobile phone. If all you're looking for is a device that will let you keep in touch with friends and family, buying a brand new smartphone can often be overkill.

British phone manufacturer Doro realised this and set about designing simple, affordable handsets that strip away all extraneous smartphone features and focus primarily on calling and texting. The Doro 6520 is one such handset. Pitched as an "Easy Phone", the 6520 incorporates a range of accessibility features that make it particularly well-suited for the elderly or those with disabilities that affect their dexterity and motor functions.

Design

• Simple flip-phone design with large physical buttons for easy operation
• Wide array of accessibility options for those who need them

• Read more on the Doro 6520's design

  

  Doro has revived the clamshell design of early 2000s mobile phones for the 6520, producing a handset that looks like it could have tumbled right out of a turn-of-the-century time capsule. But while it might not be quite as sleek as your average top-of-the-line smartphone, the 6520's compact size makes it easy to both hold and slip inside your pocket or bag while you're out and about. A soft-touch coating on the phone's back side provides extra grip, too, which should help prevent any nasty drops.

  Core to the simple appeal of the Doro 6520 is its inclusion of a physical keypad rather than a touch interface. Large buttons on the bottom half of the phone provide quick access to call and camera functions, as well as handling menu navigation on the 2.8-inch non-touch screen located on the phone's top half. Screen resolution is a modest 320 x 240, but Doro's custom operating system includes a range of options for increasing text size and adjusting other display settings for folks with impaired vision.

  Audio is another area where the Doro 6520 emphasises accessibility. The handset boasts full hearing aid compatibility (HAC) with a rating of T4/M4 and can amplify incoming voice calls by up to 35dB. Ringtone volume is also quite powerful, with a maximum output in excess of 83dB at distances of one metre.

  The Doro 6520 comes with plenty of standard audio features, too, including MP3 playback, a built-in FM radio and a 3.5mm audio jack for connecting a pair of headphones. Alternatively, support for Bluetooth 2.1 means you can sync up a set of wireless headphones if you'd prefer. If you do plan on using the Doro 6520 as an entertainment device, you'll probably want to upgrade its built-in 128MB storage capacity with a microSD card. Just note that the 6520 only supports cards up to 32GB in size.

  It's worth mentioning a couple of other valuable accessibility features the Doro 6520 brings to the table. First, there's the emergency assistance button located on the rear side of the phone's bottom half. When held down or pressed twice in succession, it sends out an SMS message to the people you've designated as emergency contacts. It then attempts to call them one by one, repeating this multiple times to maximise the chances of reaching help.

  Another valuable assistance option is the In Case of Emergency (ICE) feature. This allows you to record important medical information into the 6520's memory such as any conditions you suffer from, any allergies you have and your blood type. In the event of an emergency, medical personnel can access this information quickly and easily even if you're not in a state to provide it.

  One other factor to keep in mind with the Doro 6520 is its limited network capabilities. It can only connect to 3G networks rather than the faster 4G networks, though this has little practical impact on the quality of calls or texts. If you plan on using the 6520 for Internet use via its built-in web browser, you may notice significantly slower speeds over 3G, but to be fair, the 6520 isn't designed for heavy web browsing. That's all the more apparent given the 6520's lack of Wi-Fi network support.

Camera

• The simple point-and-shoot 2MP camera should serve well enough for basic photography
• You'll want to purchase a microSD card if you plan on taking a lot of photos or videos

• Read more on the Doro 6520's camera

  

  Doro has equipped the 6520 with a single 2MP camera on the rear side of its top half. Like the rest of the phone's features, the camera is built for simplicity and accessibility, with a basic point-and-shoot interface absent the litany of configuration settings modern smartphones come packed with. You can adjust the digital zoom level and tweak the light sensitivity, but that's about it.

  At 2MP, you'll likely find the Doro 6520's camera sufficient for basic photography and recording information you don't have time to write down. If you'd rather capture video, the 6520 supports that too, recording at a maximum resolution of 240 x 320.

Performance

• Sufficient power for the simple tasks it's designed for
• Limited internal storage caps the number of contacts it can hold

• Read more on the Doro 6520's performance

  The clean, streamlined design of the Doro 6520 doesn't just make it easier to use. By stripping out the complex features of modern smartphones, the 6520 doesn't need the latest and greatest hardware to perform quickly and efficiently. Making calls, sending texts and viewing photos requires minimal processing power, which is critical since the 6520 only packs a 650MHz processor and 64MB of RAM. Still, for the simple tasks it's capable of, the 6520 should acquit itself well enough.

  One area where the Doro 6520's low-powered hardware does hold it back is storage. Since it only includes 128MB out of the box, both the phone book and call log have hard caps on the number of entries they can store. Admittedly, these are fairly generous caps at 500 maximum contacts and 60 logged calls, but it's worth keeping in mind all the same.

Battery

• Up to 8 hours of talk time, according to Doro
• Battery can be removed and replaced if necessary

• Read more on the Doro 6520's battery

  Just as paring back features reduces the amount of work the Doro 6520's processor has to do, so too does it reduce the strain on the phone's battery. Given that the 6520's battery weighs in at a svelte 800mAh compared to the 2,000mAh or higher most modern smartphones pack, this is vital. Fortunately, Doro's claims around battery life are quite promising, with the 6520 rated for up to 8 hours of talk time and up to 380 hours when left on standby.

Pricing and availability

Doro 6520

A phone with all the nonsense cut out

The Doro 6520 puts accessibility front and centre with its large physical buttons, simple menus and helpful emergency assistance features.

• The Doro 6520 is available outright from Optus for $119.