Doro 345gsm review

While most phones we cover try to excel in the standard fields of camera performance, screen size and sheer volume of features, there are manufacturers that set their sights elsewhere. Doro is such a company.

Alongside its range of home phones, it also produces a number of handsets designed for older or less physically able users. The question is – are they merely cut-down phones whose benefits could be obtained simply by buying an older and cheaper phone from one of the ‘big five’? (That’s Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola and LG, by the way)

First impressions are positive. One of the first things you’ll notice about the 345gsm is its large, rubber buttons, adorned with similarly large, high contrast white numbers. Far removed from the teensy buttons of your average handset – and even teensy buttons are becoming an increasing rarity thanks to the touchscreen brigade – they’re comfortable to use with either one or two hands.

The ‘soft finish’ to the phone’s back makes it pleasant to hold too and gives the 345gsm a sense of quality build construction. In fact, thanks to its size and interface, the 345gsm actually feels more like a slim home phone than a mobile. That said it’s still slim and small enough to fit in most pockets.

After actually switching the phone on, you’re greeted with a surprisingly loud piano flourish. Don’t worry, you can switch it off, but it does go to demonstrate that the 345gsm’s loudspeaker is pretty loud, which will be a boon to those with slight hearing problems. To those with more serious issues, the 345gsm is also compatible with hearing aids thanks to the phone’s built-in Bluetooth. Unfortunately, without a hearing aid to hand, we couldn’t test this feature, but we’ll assume it works.

After thumbing around the interface, we started to feel once more that perhaps the Doro is a blast from the past device rather than one blazing forwards, just in a different direction. The colour screen has very large pixels, which isn’t too easy on the eye. The text defaults to a large size, mitigating for this, but considering the phone’s reasonably high price compared to low-fi budget handsets, the screen does seem rather clunky.

We did like the simple menu navigation though. Where most phones employ four-way navigation, where there are options that spring out to the left, right, up and down, you only need the two-directional rocker button on the 345gsm. Placed almost in the centre of the phone’s front, the positioning of this button is a triumph - a small one, granted, but testament to the solid design of the 345gsm. Operating the phone with one hand, your thumb automatically rests on this rocker, giving you that cosy ‘warm slippers’ effect whenever you get the 345gsm in hand.

The phone also has this element of comfort in simplicity within its menu system – once you get it setup, anyway. As we’ve already said, it’s not pretty, but a nice feature of the 345gsm is that you can cut elements out of the menu, so you can make it as simple as you like. This isn’t just useful for the elderly, but also for any technophobes who easily become flustered when overloaded with options.

Likewise, there’s a button on the back of the phone that’s primarily designed to phone a close contact in case of an emergency, but it could just as easily be used to ring the other half if you’re the type that hates mobiles but knows that these days you really can’t live without them. A 3-second press on the button phones your contact of choice, setup within the phone’s menu system.

To an extent though, the fact that the Doro veers into more mainstream audiences is part of its problem – these are the users that would probably be just as happy with an ultra-simple, cheaper solution. While the 345gsm has features that some of its stablemates don’t have, such as the torch and Bluetooth, it also lacks the dedicated accessibility features that make this Doro series of phones stand out within the market.

Once you get over the initial shock of the Doro’s relative dumpiness, you realise that the 345gsm is a very usable phone, one that doesn’t really look that bad either in its black bodied, black buttoned suit. However, the price is a stumbling block when it’s straddling its particular niche and the mainstream market, which is populated by cheaper solutions.