iNo She's Happy!

Mom needed a new cell phone. She had been complaining about her Nokia for some weeks now.

Her old cell phone was slowly failing on her. Its ring tone had become softer to the point she started to have miscalls frequently. Setting its volume to its highest level did not help for long before the tone got back to become even softer after a while.

As if that was not already bad, putting it in her handbag when she went out did not help. She had become hard to reach, so her children had to call the sibling who was taking her out for outings or shopping that day in order to talk to her.

That was not a terrible inconvenience.

What is, is the number of possible people that she and Dad may be out with. With eight siblings and several nieces, one has to make a guess which one our parents are with and try calling their cell phones to get them.

Most times, going down the phone list until one gets the right person who would then pass the phone to Mom.

Well, it is not as if we needed to call her urgently all the time or what...

It is just that when Mom or Dad does not hang-up their home land-line handset properly and they become unreachable, we assume the worst.

Two very old folks, adamant to live alone by themselves... something terrible might have happened to them when they do not answer the phone.

It is not a good thought... so we normally, we would call Mom's cell phone to get into contact with her and inform her to place the handset properly.

With her old cell phone acting up on her, it became unnerving for everyone.

Whenever she did pick up the call, it is just irritating for both persons on either end of the line because her cell phone's speaker volume has gotten softer too and made talking, kind of a silly affair... we had to talk louder and at times like shouting into the phone.

It felt and can probably be misconstrued as having a quarrel with Mom over the phone!

So much for an old generation Nokia 1208 I purposely bought for her in January this year, simply because it had large numbers display.

Well, for S$65, I take it that the phone is good only for a year's use.

So on the eve of Christmas, I left at lunch time from work to NTUC Xtra Fairprice supermarket at Hougang Point to buy Mom a new set.

A friend introduced to me a cell phone for designed for the elderly called iNo CP09. Interestingly, the phone was conceived and made in Singapore!

The larger than ever numbers and letters on the LCD display screen and over-sized keypads with big numbers on it make the phone look like a calculator. Yet, are definite convenient features welcomed by the elderly.

Coupled with adjustable louder than usual ring tones and keypad sounds, the hard-of-hearing old folks will find these useful.

A interesting feature is the programmable gender phone-book listing. Two buttons... one with a lady and another, a man's face on each of the keypads. This can be programmed as quick-list buttons for numbers of daughters and sons respectively.

It has a built-in LED flashlight activated with a flick of a button on its side.

The FM radio has a reasonable clear reception without the need for an earphone to be plugged in to double as an antenna.

The most important and definitely useful feature, yet hopefully will never be used at all...

An SOS button on the back of the phone for emergency calls!

With a press of bright orange button, there will be a loud distress sound from the phone to attract passers-by to help, or neighbours if it happens at home.

It simultaneously also sends out emergency SMS up to 4 programmed cell phone numbers to immediately inform of the distress situation.


We presented Mom with the gift while we met at the hospital to visit Dad. Once Mom's SIM card was ported over to her new black iNO, she gave a big smile. Of course, not without some programming of the time, date, ring tones, voice tone done by Sonny first.

I thought it was going to be a long session to teach Mom to use its features at the hospital but elderly nowadays are tech-savvy!

She got the hang of it the first time, since some features are about the same and very familiar to her already. She was using confidently when we did some "trial runs" before we parted for home.

Sweet! Lesser worry for everyone because Mom is now contactable again.

Enjoy your new cell phone, Mom!