Six Months with Android: Braille, AI, and OnePlus Experience

In February 2025, I got my OnePlus 13. This article will detail my journey with the phone, my thoughts on Android as a whole, and in particular, Braille support. I’ll also go over the pain points with the OnePlus 13, and my attempts to contact the company and get things fixed.

My Journey with Android

Android was my first smart phone. I started with a Samsung Stratosphere, which ran Android 2.3 and had a slide out keyboard. One day, I lost it. So I had to get a new phone. The new phone wasn’t an Android, so we’ll skip to the Google Pixel. I had that for a while, until iPhone users were showing how they were reading books on BARD Mobile and such; I don’t think that was on Android at the time. Next, I had the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, which to this day is still my favorite phone. Then the Pixel 8, which was too sluggish for me, and now the OnePlus 13.

So, why the OnePlus 13? Google TalkBack was built-in, unlike Samsung’s phone. It has a very fast processor, unlike the Google Pixel lines. And it supports APTX, which is a Bluetooth codec with a low latency variant that works very well, unlike Pixels. And when you use a screen reader with earbuds, you don’t want to have to wait half a second between a swipe and an announcement from TalkBack.

Reading with Android

I read a lot. It started with the iPod Touch, where I read a whole book in the Books app with VoiceOver. I still read a lot, mostly using Audible these days. But when a book doesn’t have an Audible version, what do you do? Well, on my Samsung phone, I would open Alexa and tell her to read my Kindle book. Why? Because Kindle didn’t work too well with TalkBack at the time. Meanwhile, it’s worked great with VoiceOver on iOS for 10+ years.

Now, for screen reader reading, which is what I like to do, A lot of blind Android users read with TTS. I separate this from reading with a screen reader because TTS reading does not use the screen reader, lacks character by character navigation, and you have to control the speed through the app instead of using screen reader commands. I like ElevenLabs reader, because if we’re gonna use TTS, why not use just about the best one out there?

Now, for screen reader reading, which is what I like to do, there is only one app that works well: Kindle. A few months ago, Kindle changed how they display the book, making it, to TalkBack, like a list view that scrolls until the book is finished. So, when TalkBack reaches the end of the page, and tries to scroll again, Kindle does so, and TalkBack continues reading. No other reading app does this, not even Google’s Play Books app. If you swipe after opening a book, you’ll never find the contents of the book. You can touch the page content, but then if you try to read from there, it gets stuck outside the page again.

Braille support: solid but unsubstantial

TalkBack’s Braille support has come a long way in the three or so years it’s been a thing. We can read and write in many Braille codes, control the phone with the six typing keys, backspace, Enter, and the Space bar, and turn on auto-scroll, which allows us to read continuously without pressing the scroll button at the end of each line. We can even turn on a setting that automatically scrolls the display based on line length, so you’re not waiting for the display to scroll after reading a short line of text.

But some Braille displays have more than just nine buttons. The Braille Edge, for example, has 16 more keys. It has eight function keys, and two sets of arrow keys, one on each side. Most of these keys do nothing. The arrow keys don’t move around the screen, the function keys don’t do anything besides two of them that move forward and back one item, which would be better served assigned to arrow keys. And for some reason, the right pad Left and Right pad right arrow keys pressed together performs the Paste function.

After looking into this, I found that it’s because that’s what BRLTTY uses. BRLTTY is a Braille system for Linux and Android which allows Braille displays to work with those operating systems. So, it seems that Google took the command sets from BRLTTY and plopped those into their Braille solution. I can only hope that my display is the only one with this kind of issue. If any other blind people have this issue, please speak out. Braille displays are expensive, and we should be able to use them to their full potential. Braille is also important for Deaf-Blind people, whose only way to use a phone is through Braille. So for them, a phone that cannot use sixteen buttons of a display would leave a terrible first impression.

My OnePlus 13 has a few extra issues with Braille. When I first turn on the phone, I cannot enter my PIN using Braille. If I change it to a password, it uses OnePlus’ secure password keyboard, which sends the key announcements to TalkBack rather than displaying an actual keyboard for TalkBack to focus on. This also means that typing in Braille doesn’t work, so I cannot type a PIN or password to unlock my phone. Instead, I must press Space with dot 4 to find the row the first number is on, press enter with dots 4-5 to find the right number, press Enter to select, press Space with dot 1 to find the next row, Backspace with dots 1-2 until I find the next number, then Enter to select. Luckily, I changed it to where I only have four numbers instead of six in my PIN.

Next, if I open a text field to type into, sometimes the message that an external Braille display is connected overlays the actual text field, meaning that the text field cannot accept any written text. So, I have to switch keyboards many times in order to jigger things into place. This is really annoying, but only seems to be necessary the first time I connect the display or restart the phone.

AI is Great for Some

If you like to talk, AI will be great for you. If you like to type, AI won’t be so great. With Google Gemini, if you talk to it, you hear the response. If you type and press send, sometimes you’ll hear the name of the topic, and sometimes not. Gemini isn’t the only one though. ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity do the same thing. They are, in fact, even worse, since they do nothing after you press send. This is another showcase of less care invested into Android apps than iOS apps. Even Gemini for iOS tells the user when the response is ready to read. All I’d ask is that Android be given that same treatment.

On the other hand, TalkBack’s Gemini image descriptions are great. I play video games. For classic games, Classic Boy Pro is a great app supporting many game consoles. AetherSX2 is a great Playstation 2 emulator, and Dolphin is great for GameCube and Wii. If I launch a game, I can have TalkBack describe the game screen. This depends on the emulator having an element visible to TalkBack to focus on. If an app has no focusable elements, TalkBack cannot describe them, even if you try to have it describe the entire screen. So, RetroArch and Lemuroid will not work. TalkBack’s image descriptions are amazing for describing images. My mother sends me pictures of our cat, or just random scenes at home or work, and I can have those described to me. I can know what a Burger King hat looks like, or what our cat looks like.

OnePlus Woes

My phone presents some extra challenges. When you first turn on the phone, after taking it out of the box, and turn on TalkBack, the button to “get started” with setup is not visible to TalkBack. So, I had to tap around the screen with TalkBack off, in order to even begin setting up the phone. The fingerprint reader is supposed to guide TalkBack users on where the sensor actually is. Mine just says “move up,” all the time. So I had to train myself on where the sensor is, without reliable help.

I contacted OnePlus about this in February, the month I got the phone. At first, they wanted me to just send the phone back to them. I declined, as I know they can fix these small issues. Then, I got them to send those issues off to some one up the chain. I’ve not heard back from them sense.

I then made a post about these issues in a review on the OnePlus community earlier this month. The post got several likes, and OnePlus again posted to say they’ve sent it to their engineers. I’m not holding my breath.

So, why did I choose the OnePlus 13? First, it is the fastest Android phone around at the time for the price range. Second, it comes with Google’s TalkBack, not the neutered Samsung version. And third, because it uses a high-end snapdragon processor, it comes with support for APTX, a Bluetooth audio codec with a low latency variant. When I’m using wireless headphones, I want the least amount of latency I can get.

Conclusion

This article has been my journey with Android over these six months. I still love the OS, and love the basic but solid implementation of Braille. I love TalkBack and its image descriptions. But I wish Google took more care about Braille commands and talked with people using varied devices rather than the most popular ones, and I wish the Gemini team treated Android accessibility with the same respect they show iOS.

I’ll continue to use Android, and hope that things continue to improve. For hearing blind people that have a popular Braille display that don’t need much out of Braille, Android is pretty nice. If you enjoy learning about pictures and playing video games, Android is the best you’ll get. If you primarily use Kindle for reading, Android will suit you. We’re so close, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.