14 DAY TRIAL // Spice Telecom, an India-based company, announced that it would introduce, in the next two months, an affordable Braille mobile phone for all the users that are visually impaired. The announcement came during the release of Spice's "People Phone", sold for only 599 INR and presented by the company as the cheapest mobile phone in India. Well, 599 INR means about 14 USD or 9 Euros, so the People Phone might also be the most affordable handset in the whole world.
Although it was first unveiled at the beginning of February, the Braille phone will only be released at the end of this summer. The Braille handset is similar to the People Phone, but instead of standard keys, it comes with keys that have Braille numbers on them, allowing blind people to easily use it. The device obviously doesn't have a display, as its main purpose is to make and receive calls on GSM networks. Both the People Phone and the Braille one weigh only 75 grams and pack batteries capable of providing up to three hours of talk-time and up to 15 days of stand-by time.
The People Phone is currently available only in the Karnataka and Punjab regions, which have, together, almost 80 million people. For the beginning, the Braille phone will be launched only in these regions too. Anyway, Spice plans to release both its handsets all over India, making them available to all the users who might want to buy them.
Like the People Phone, the Braille one will have the same 599 INR retail price, coming with a free pre-paid connection to Spice's network until 2016. The local calls made from the handset will cost as low as 1 INR per minute, hence they won't drain too much money out of the users' pockets.