Ask Slashdot: What Tablet and Software For a Partially Sighted Person?

RobHart (70431) writes My friend has had both retinas detach, twice. He is legally blind but partially sighted. He has a number of devices that help him read (either by magnifying the text or as text to speech) — but none are really portable. What do Slashdotters recommend (if anything) in terms of a tablet and software that will make it possible for him to do email and read at least some web sites?

Comments

iOS

[Anonymous Coward]

iPad / iPhone. Their accessibility support is top-notch, and you can walk into an Apple store and ask an employee to walk you through it all.

I can vouch for the iPad

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife had both retinas detach also (due to uveitis), lost vision completely in one eye due to scarring in the re-attachment surgery, had to have DSEK on her only good eye, and she's currently legally blind too (20/200). She's been using an iPad as her "main" computer since the 1st gen iPad (currently on a 3rd gen). The fact that she can pinch-zoom almost every website/email up to whatever zoom level is necessary has been a life-saver for her. For websites that have 'mobile' versions that disable pinch and zoom, the new Mobile Safari now has an option to "Request Desktop Site", which mostly works to request a zoomable, desktop version of the website. Dictation has also worked well for her when she had a flare and her vision was almost nil. On top of that, there's some other accessibility features like VoiceOver and 'hardware' zoom through a triple-tap that she has not needed to use, but they're there if push comes to shove.

Samsung

[denisbergeron]

I have Note 3 and Note Pro 12.2 both have voice read mode and high contrast mode. D ont know if is standard on any other android.