Standalone E-mail devices make
staying in touch with seniors easy

BY JA Strom —
E-mailing makes it easy to connect with friends and family — at least with those who have a computer and an Internet connection. However there are several devices available that can bring E-mail to those without a computer. So, this can be a good way to stay in touch with an older relative who is unlikely to want to learn to use a computer.

Here we'll take a look at three of the more popular devices.

Presto

With Presto Printing Mailbox, made by Hewlett Packard, you send your email and any attached photos or PDF document to a Presto E-mail address. The Presto service converts it into a customizable layout and sends it to the Hewlett Packard (HP) mailbox in your relative’s home where your correspondence prints out automatically. The Presto Printing Mailbox is connected to the user’s phone line, so it doesn’t require a separate Internet connection or computer. You can schedule the intervals at which the emails print out.

There is an additional feature called Presto Connect, a web site that allows you to manage the communication to your relative or friend. You can:

• Send messages, reminders for appointments or medication and “to do” lists
  
  
• Preschedule delivery of your emails for a future date and time
  
  
• Confirm message delivery
  
  
• View a list of who has sent messages. (You can create a “Friends List” of those allowed to send email messages.)
  
  
• Monitor ink level and paper status
  
  
• Change preferences like font size or message retrieval times (Remember: larger plain fonts are better for older eyes.)

An option called Presto Newsstand lets the Mailbox receive and print such things as popular columns, puzzles, recipes and feature stores on a daily basis.

Before you send someone lots and lots of photos, remember that the ink cartridges are not cheap and do have to be replace. Cartridges can cost between $25 and $35. (You can choose to be the “account manager” and have replacement ink sent when he service says it is running low).

To subscribe to the Presto service costs about $13 a month. The Presto Printing Mailbox generally retails for about $150. (It is available at the GrayTimes Amazon.com affiliate store for under $130.)

Celery

With Celery, you can both send and receive messages from your computerless relative. Using Celery’s “Ready to Email” machine, which is basically a printer and scanner, your relative receives your E-mail via fax and can send his or her handwritten letter by the same fax machine which you then get as an E-mail.

Celery’s service runs from about $14 a month for up to 100 color pages or about $9 a month for up to 100 black-and-white pages. A yearly subscription costs a little less. Celery uses a Lexmark fax, which costs about $119. You can use your own fax machine but that makes dialing more complicated; with Celery’s “system,” there are only one or two buttons to press to use it.

Landel MailBug

The Landel MailBug is a small device that connects to your phone line and allows you to send and receive E-mails. You don’t have to have an Internet account to send E-mail from the device — that’s built in. The Mailbug has a keyboard, a small screen and includes its own E-mail address.

Landel markets the MailBug as easy for anyone to use, age 5 to 105. It retrieves and sends emails automatically and displays them on an 8-line high contrast display screen. All you have to do is type in your message.

The device does not come with a printer. However, you can send a message to a standard fax machine, so you can send a quick fax or print out an E-mail without having a computer.

The Landel MailBug itself costs about $130 at the GrayTimes Amazon.com affiliate store, and the email service is $9.95 per month. The MailBug makes local calls from your home in order to send and receive mail, so there are no long-distance charges in most cities or towns. The service is widely available through local dialup, but you'll need to check with the company to make sure that's the case in your area.

(Posted March 19, 2009)