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Ask Slashdot: Easy Wi-Fi-Enabled Tablet For My Dad?

Posted by Soulskill on from the if-only-the-weather-channel-made-a-tablet dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I'm looking to pick up a tablet for my father. He is in his 70s and the internet is a bit of a mystery to him, but he asked me about a way to send/receive email and watch online videos. He is not interested in getting a smartphone or changing his cheap phone plan that doesn't include data. But he is interested in getting a tablet and using the free Wi-Fi that is available in his building. Here is my question: can you recommend a tablet equivalent to those phones with the big numbers that they sell to older people? Does there exist a tablet with an interface that would be simple and easy to use for someone who has very little experience with computer GUIs?"

4 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. Get an iPad by KliX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Got one for my mum - problem solved.

    Didn't even have to explain how to use it!

  2. This ^ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This.

    My mother struggled like mad with an ipad after I lent her mine, that she decided that after all she didn't want one and stuck with her laptop. It also kyboshed her desire for an 'iphone' when after I explained that while all her friends may have one, an iphone is just a very small ipad - smaller screen, smaller icons.

    Dexterity is a problem, holding the tablet withoyt realising that your contact with the hand you are holding it with is preventing the finger on the other hand from being able to move the icons. She just ended up putting on a table flat to use in case she accidentally touched the screen in the wrong place.

    It was quite suprising as I hadn't considered that using an ipad would be that hard.

    Turns out my father also struggled with the touch-screen environment on my sister's iphone.

  3. Re:iPad by tverbeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did you read the question? How are the cameras and higher resolution worth anything to a man in his 70s who just wants to read e-mail and watch movies? The high pixel density on the latest displays is wasted on someone with declining eyesight and presbyopia (and encourages app developers who don't understand this to use tiny fonts, just because they can). And I can't recall the last time I used a camera while reading e-mail or watching a movie. He was asking about a tablet for his father, not for you.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  4. Re:iPad by xenoc_1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My Samsung galaxy tab 2.

    I installed cyanogenmod and its going to get "kitkat" shortly.

    Which expensive tablet only allows you to run what the vendor says you can?

    Same thing I said to the iPad guy. Being able to install new ROMs matters exactly why, to this use case?

    No, OP's dad isn't going to give a crap about cyanogen mod. Nor about any of the other "latest and greatest" that Android fanboyz and iFans each seem to thing is so important as you rush down to give the retailers more money every few months, and then root/jailbreak/mod the shiny you just bought.

    Everyone is not you.