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Traditional cell  phones offer ease of communication; or at least ease of communication for those who are sighted and have good hearing. For those who are blind, touch screen phones can be impossible to use. For those who are deaf or severely hearing impaired, any cell phone has limited usefulness.

Cell phones for the blind often require adaptations. Adding on text to speech software and making use of an add on braille keyboard can certainly help, but they aren't necessarily convenient or ready to go out of the box.  Braille cell phones have been proposed. Spice is reportedly developing one. In addition, the B-Touch is a concept phone that's being discussed which will not only be a braille phone with text-to-speech capabilities, but can also act as a text reader.  Still, those are off in the future.

Cell phones for the hearing impaired are better designed for those with a mild hearing loss. For those who are deaf or have a severe to profound loss, text messaging is their best bet. This is pretty limiting however. Making use of a relay service or VCO service is another option.

There's a new possiblity now available though, and it's perfect for the deaf-blind population. The DeafBlind Communicator was developed by HumanWare in conjunction with the Washington State Department of Social & Health Services.  It's actually two devices. For a deaf-blind individual who wants to communication with a sighted individual, they can just hand one device to them while keeping the other, and then via a text display and voice, the tool will allow them to communicate directly and freely with that individual. In addition, the device will also allow the individual to make and take telephone calls. The phone can convert text into braille and provide voice communication through a relay service. Of course, the communicator can provide SMS messaging as well. All in a portable device.  It's not a cell phone, but it can certainly facilitate easy communication in a portable fashion.