Root Ruggear RG310 - but would it help?

Hi.
I've been trying to get my dad a phone that he can use which ticks all the boxes: tough and very loud for construction sites and he's deaf, big physical buttons (his finger skin is so thick that touch screens don't work), easy to operate (tech level: hammer) although his missus and I can set it up for him. Front facing camera and video call capability so wifi and data for whatsapp or skype or other, functional main camera but nothing special.
So, I bought second hand an old Ruggear RG310 on android 4.4.2 Kernel 3.4.67 Build number RG310-isafe-0062-20180830 as it seemed to tick some of these boxes.

On playing with it it is lacking the easy to operate bit. I thought I'd be able to customise the Home screen to pin his most used contacts but I can't change anything.
Despite the physical keyboard, at any data entry prompt the virtual keyboard pops up and covers half of the already tiny screen, which seems completely pointless and is very annoying. I can't find any way to turn it off - there's no hardware keyboard option in Languages and keyboard settings.
It would be better if it defaulted to the main home screen on unlocking, at the moment it stays wherever you left it.
The font is set to 'huge' but it's still tiny.
There's an SOS button on the front but there's no way to set it up. It's also PTT ready but there's no information on how this works and the button does nothing.

My questions are - would rooting it let me change these things? And if yes, how do I root it? I've never done this before.

Web searches have come up with many highly dodgy looking 'download my root app and I'll empty your bank account' type websites.

Or have I just bought a new door stop?

Thanks

 

Hi ocnbrze, thanks for your reply. I wasn't very clear about the keyboard - the phone has a physical keyboard so the virtual one is useless. I'd like to disable it but the OS seems highly customised and many normal android functions are not available.
I suspected that rooting wouldnt be possible. Oh well, thanks anyway.