Tablets for the techno-inept

[Brains]

My 84 year old mother never got the hang of PC's but she has got herself an iPad (which she bough herself in the Duty Fee in New York).

We stripped off most of the apps, leaving it with the most basic of options and settings
She has managed to send and receive e-mails with difficulty, but it's really down to practice.
She has also managed to use Skype with a bit of help and instruction

However Google and other search engines and the world wide web is beyond her abilities.
She also has zero interest in playing games or reading books using it and if she wants music, then that is what the radio is for.

The major advantage as far as I can ascertain for the computer illiterate older generations of a tablet over a PC, is the lack of buttons and options. There is simply and on/off button, and you logically touch the screen for what you want to do.

Basically 'KISS' - Keep it simple stupid. .

 

[stephec]

So what do you get for more money?

I have a 7" tablet from Aldi with a quad processor and 1Gb of ram for £80, does what it's supposed to do but every now and then the screen freezes for 6-7 seconds, this is something I've seen on other cheap tablets as well.

Would paying more for something like a Samsung or Nexus eliminate that?

 

[welsh dragon]

So what do you get for more money?

I have a 7" tablet from Aldi with a quad processor and 1Gb of ram for £80, does what it's supposed to do but every now and then the screen freezes for 6-7 seconds, this is something I've seen on other cheap tablets as well.

Would paying more for something like a Samsung or Nexus eliminate that?

No.

 

[stephec]

So it's things like a better screen and camera then?

 

[welsh dragon]

So it's things like a better screen and camera then?

Ermmmmm. No

 

[TheDoctor]

I've got a Samsung netbook, a £45 tablet, and a Nexus 7. The Nexus is best by a mile.
To reply to the OP, have you considered Chromebooks? Very web-centric, but if the Web is all they want it could be a winner.

 

[Diggs]

We found the Nexus a mixed bag, myself and one Diglet still use ours, the other had a number of issues, primarily one of charging.
I set up Mother/Father In Law with a Hudl, which as others have said, is excellent VFM. They had no computer experience at all but given the intuative nature of tablets, they were up and running in no time - once I set them up and popped round a few times (they have questions/issues from time to time, of course). I doubt if adding additional key board etc would have helped to be honest but everyone is different