easiest tablet for elderly mom

[Anonymous]

Can anyone help with this -- my mom is 81 and has never had Wifi or wanted to learn anything about technology. She's fought us installing it for years. Now that she's stuck in the house for God knows how long, she's been asking about getting it. So, the question is, what's the easiest tablet to get her? She knows NOTHING, so it needs to be as basic as possible. We'd of course set it all up before handing it over to her. She wants to be able to get pictures and videos of the grandkids, to video chat with family and to watch church on Sundays. Maybe she can eventually graduate to some online shopping, but I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

iPad

[Anonymous]

My mother at the same age has an iPad. She can use it for email, Zoom, internet searches. She has Wifi in her house though. Occasionally we have to trouble shoot.

[Anonymous]

Wow I just logged on to post the same question.

[Anonymous]

I commented in the other thread: Another vote for iPad - which comes in cellular versions that can be added to her phone bill — at least with Verizon — inexpensively if she doesn’t want to get WiFi

[Anonymous]

Below is what I put on the other thread:

I agree with PPs, I would get an iPad if you are comfortable with it. Elderly family members in my extended family all use iPads now (some full sized and some mini - depending on dexterity/eyesight!), and regularly send each other and the younger relatives pictures and texts. They all love their iPads, and now they respond faster to texts than to calls! Only downside is that we cannot get group FaceTime to work with the iPads, but that may or may not be a big deal to you. Deleting apps that will not be used is a good idea to "declutter" and streamline the learning curve. However, once they learned how to use the iPad, my family started to install more apps, including Facebook to keep track of what family members are doing...

[Anonymous]

The grandpad

https://www.grandpad.net/

[Anonymous]

My Gran is 80 and loves her ipad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The grandpad

https://www.grandpad.net/

I worked with elderly people and this was by far the easiest tablet for them to use. I think it would probably suit your Mom's needs OP.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all! Will check out the Grandpad.

[Anonymous]

I vote iPad. It needs to be something you know how to operate, as she will have LOTS of questions.

[Anonymous]

iPad

[Anonymous]

And there's an amazing sale at Best Buy. I just bought one!

[Anonymous]

IPad. You buy and set up, then mail to her.

[Anonymous]

Does she have a computer? Has she ever used a computer? What type of cell phone does she have? If she doesn't even have a computer and isn't proficient with swiping on her cellphone, then I wouldn't get her an iPad, Kindle or anything else.

I would get her an all-in-one Inspiron desktop computer from Dell. It will have a large monitor, there is no separate hard drive frame, she can use a keyboard and mouse. You can set it up as a touch screen but frankly if she is totally technology illiterate then the swiping and typing on the screen will be very, very frustrating for her. She will find it much easier to use a mouse and a keyboard.

My frame of reference: my 85 year-old uncle retired last year. Up until his last day he had a secretary who printed out his emails and to whom he dictated his email replies. He is a -very- smart man; however, the swiping concept drove him to no end of exasperation. He also had a hard time holding the iPad, the Kindle, and the ChromeBooks (yes, we tried them all). What we found was with these various smaller devices he had difficulty using them without his fingers getting all over the screen and causing chaos to ensue when he ended up in the wrong place. Now he sits at his desk, looks at his emails, does a little online shopping and we Zoom like crazy. He also prints up a storm which is a side benefit we didn't consider because he loves paper copies. On the computer screen I have hidden all of the icons he finds annoying and I even set up different browsers for different actions so that all he has to do is click on the specific browser icon to go to email or to go to Zoom for example. I also installed a Share app so I can go to his computer remotely and help if he gets in a jam.

I hope you find this helpful. Good luck!