Ask Lemmy

For mine?

A Ouija board.

Try Big Launcher on any Android phone. About as simple as you can get.

From my perspective you don't necessarily need a simplified Android but only a simplified launcher. There are plenty of senior friendly launchers in the play store.

My advice is a little different than others. I recently got my in-laws outfitted with smartphones and a new nuc. My father in-law has Parkinson's, slow onset, but it means he is clumsy. It's not likely that his phone will survive shaky hands for 8 years. What I did was buy refurbished OnePlus phones, install a simple launcher, install Bitdefender, and then add a lock app that let's me add a pin to the system settings app and the play store.

They can't install anything out change things. They can browse, play games I preload, take pictures, etc, but I don't have to worry about them installing things they shouldn't. If one of the phone dies I'll just get the latest affordable refurbished of the same line and configure it the same way.

I had originally tried without locking the phone down as much but my father in law could not stop installing spammy weather apps and clicking ads on games and following there instructions.

I also created new Google accounts for them that I manage, so they can't get stuff stolen with bad account management practice.

If you are in the US, I've also found mint to be a good deal for cell service.

If its an iPhone I would go with an iPhone plus for the screen size.

If its android, I would go with a Samsung A device. They're usually big in size, affordable, comes with a lot of accessibility features, good battery, and relatively easy to find accessories and spare parts.

iPhone 6s PLUS. Increase the font and screen size. Samsung A Galaxy

An Ouija-phone, seeing they're all dead.

Jokes aside, Doro has a range of reasonably priced phones, from old style to Android smartphones, with "Old people interface" available to cut down on the techno fluff old folks likely won't use. 3/4 grandparents were able to operate them, can recommend.

if you're located in europe, fairphones might be an option. pretty expensive for what they are, but they get 7 years of software support. plus they're easily fixable if your grandparents are a bit clumsy.

they have been getting bigger every generation, and the cameras are quite usable under normal lighting conditions.

Doro makes phones specifically for seniors. They're okay but still a bit complex for some

In my experience, older people want to use their smartphones forever so that they don't have to relearn how to use them. If I were you, I would therefore use a mobile phone with the longest possible software support. I think that the Google Pixel 8 fulfils your criteria and offers very long software support among Android smartphones. Given Google's size, you can also assume that the company won't go bankrupt before then.

Well... Anything a generation old for price and not flag ship. Samsung A-something or Google something-a. You can change the screen dpi to make thing more readable.

You can install a custom launcher to have full control over the home screen and just show the important apps like call, text and email. I use pre sale Nova.

Most custom launchers let you lock the home screen too, something I learnt was important for my mother who would CONSTANTLY drag stuff around, get lost and then claim she didn't go anything.

Depends massively on your budget, i would buy any 400ish dollar phone from any well known chinese brand (Redmi, Realme) and flash it with something like lineage OS, the hardware is good enough and will last a few years, if you have a higher budget, something like the asus zenfone is also good and you probably won’t need to modify the software (unless you want to)

Stay away from samsung imo, they are harder to mod and their budget phones are far from the best, they may look decent on paper but the software and speed are very lackluster

Some older apple devices. I usually despise apple devices but their strong points usually are big screen + good camera while also being piss easy to use for non techsavvy people.

I'm going to answer your question with a question. Do they actually need smartphones? Are they really going to use any of the "smart" features? If not, just get them a Motorola Razr or something and be done with it.

I'd double check that language you need isn't already on iPhone. They've added pretty much every language spoken by at least 100k people.

iPhone is really the only choice for the computer/smartphone illiterate. You can't easily put the device in an unrecognizable state, you can't install a launcher that drastically changes the GUI from the app store. iPhone justifiably gets tons of shit, but this is the exact use case it's designed for. They also have really good accessibility features, and they actually work in apps.

Android has tons of benefits, and I've had only android for the last 14 years. I think if you are planning on removing the settings app all together, you know it's not a great choice for them.

One with a ouija board built in.

You can basically make a dumb smartphone with grapheneos so a pixel would be good for them. If you dont need a dumb phone set it up with the playstore and whatever apps they use and boom good to go

Edit: I would also setup accessibility features. Forgot to mention regardless of os add some kind of network firewall or DNS solution to block malicious/phishing domains. The elderly are often victims of scams

My mother is 84. I got her a Motorola phone for around €170 / $180 and did the setup for her (increase text size, setup whatsapp etc.). It is perfect. Main consideration was a decent battery life, reasonable camera and a not awful processor.

At her age all she wants is phone calls, texts, youtube and whatsapp and most androids in that price range or higher ticks those boxes IMO.

If you dont mind chiniese companys try the Xiaomi mi max 4: pretty big screen 7,2", android, good enough camera and it's quite cheap.