The Pad 971 is a tablet manufactured by Haier, a Chinese company known in the European market for its home appliances. This is a device powered by Android 5.1 Lollipop that is suitable for people with vision and hearing disabilities. Unfortunately, we cannot recommend it to people with dexterity disabilities or limited comprehension skills. We were able to review this tablet thanks to a loan by Haier.

This handset runs on a quad core ARM RK 3288 processor at 1.8 GHz. It has an attractive slim design with dimensions of 240 x 168 x 7.6 mm and a weight of 540 grams. Its display is a 9.7 inches IPS panel with 2048 x 1536 pixels resolution.

The device has a rear – facing camera with 8 megapixels with autofocus and flash, and a 2 megapixels front-facing camera that makes videos. It also comes with 16 GB of internal memory expandable with microSD card up to 64 GB and 2 GB of RAM.

Accessibility review

The accessibility features included in the Haier Pad 971 are minimal if compared to other Android devices available in the market. Users with disabilities will not find a shortcut to accessibility menu already available from the first power up or special features that would improve their access and experience.

Additionally, the accessibility menu is not intuitive. Features are divided into Services, System and Display, so some users with disabilities may have a hard time finding the functions that suit them best.

Context is important particularly to people relying on assistive devices such as screen readers. It is better for them if accessibility features are divided by type of disability or interaction.

Vision

This tablet is accessible to blind people. The TalkBack version included reads users through most of the available visual content.

This device is also suitable for people with low vision. The default font size is large enough to make the text readable to these users. They also have an option to enlarge the size of the font to meet their needs. The tablet also includes a screen magnifier and an option to increase color contrast.

Hearing

Because the Pad 971 does not support voice calls, the hearing aid compatibility was not reviewed. Although no serious accessibility problems were detected there are a few usability issues that need addressing. The tablet does not vibrate or light up when a notification enters. This hinders the experience of people with hearing disability.

Notwithstanding, the handset is compatible with instant messaging apps for Android and allows videocalls through apps such as Skype or Google Hangouts.

Dexterity

This Pad 971 is light and slim which makes holding it easy. However, we cannot recommend it to people with dexterity disabilities. The power button is too hard to press. People with little strength in their upper extremities may not be able to use this key.

In addition, it is not possible to control it with writing stick or voice commands. The Pad 971 comes with Google Now preinstalled but it fails to respond to commands such as call or send message. It opens the Google Browser instead.

The only accessibility feature available for these users is the Swith Access that lets them scan and select items using external switches.

Comprehension

The Haier Pad 971 does not offer specific accessibility features for people with comprehension issues due to old age, cognitive or learning disabilities. An important barrier was observed is the design of the navigation keys located at the bottom of the display. It consists of a triangle, a square and a circle. This design can be confusing for there is nothing that would help these users to readily know the functions of these keys.

For more information about accessibility features available in this device, please consult our full accessibility report.