Best simple tablet for 70 year old!

twohooter_2

Hi
I would really appreciate some advice on which would be the best tablet for my 70 year old Father. He is quite good at using his windows PC for internet and e mails but I doubt would cope with an I pad. I would like to buy him one for his birthday and my budget will only stretch to circa £150. He would use it mainly whilst abroad on holiday for Skype, e mails, internet (he likes to read the newspaper online) looking at his photo collection and music. My parents have one of those Bose soundlink external/wireless mini speakers which they use with their I pod so I was hoping to get him a tablet that would be compatible with that so that he could stream his music from tablet to soundlink. I think it would need a fairly large screen. He has loads of photos and a big music collection so would need a reasonable size hard drive. I don't own a tablet myself so am at a bit of a loss. All advice welcome.

macman

Since almost all tablets except iPads use Android OS, no single tablet is really going to be any 'simpler' than another. The Apple iOS is generally regarded as being the most intuitive OS.
Your first choice is what size-7 or 10 inch?
Tablets don't have hard drives, they have flash memory, which is usually quite restricted-some devices can have the storage expanded by use of a memory card and slot.

twohooter_2

Thanks Macman. So is there a 10 inch (not apple as too expensive) tablet with capacity to store say 1,000 photos and 1,000 songs you would recommend. Must work with soundlink wirelessly.

JJ_Egan

Older people generally cope well with tablets be it IOS or Android even those that dont use a PC ..
Main feature required may be size relative to eyesight 10 inch better than 7 inch in that regard .
Google Nexus 7 inch would be the budget option .

RumRat

He wouldn't have any trouble with an iPad or any other tablet come to that.
I'll agree with macman that size is a consideration, but, he missed out 8 inch tablets.

emptybox

It's a bit worrying that you say you don't think he'd cope with an ipad, as they are probably the simplest tablet for a beginner to get to grips with.
Is that because of the size of the screen or something else?

Also you say he'd want to use the internet on holiday.
Is he likely to always be in reach of wifi, or would he need a tablet that could use a mobile sim?

If he wanted to keep a large music and photo collection on the device, you'd want one with at least 16GB of storage, and possibly 32GB. Or the ability to add a large microSD card.
Although, if you're using wifi, you could use a cloud service like Google Play Music to store the music collection in the cloud, so wouldn't need as much on-device storage.

I see Argos are selling the first generation Nexus 7 32GB for £130.
Though this is an android tablet with a 7" screen, and is wifi only, so may not fulfil your needs?
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/8141222.htm?CMPID=GS001&_$ja=cgid:10095144182|tsid:41408|cid:177976142|lid:50304410222|nw:g|crid:38921753822|rnd:3557070655616080004|dvc:t|adp:1o2
It's a very good tablet though. My Brother has one.

devizes18193

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/List.aspx?sel=PCNB&ctrl=f&facet_name=HP%20Slate%2010&jumpid=ps_r11638_uk/en/hho/psg/Google_ps_ob_ds_pd/Pro-Per-Google-EMEA-PSG-UK-PaidSearch_str/dt&k_clickid=EMEA|2b48eb58-4316-9789-1ae4-00005a2b125b

twohooter_2

Thanks for the replies. I'll certainly take a look at the suggestions. The reason I thought he wouldn't easily manage an I pad is that he has only used windows and only that in a very basic fashion. I have no knowledge of I pads but assumed they would look and feel very different and that android ones would be more similar to windows - I guess I am wrong!


He would primarily use internet wirelessly so I doubt he would use a mobile sim. I think one with the ability to add a sim card into an expansion slot would give him the flexibility to store his music separately which will enable me to look a 16GB.

twohooter_2

Devizes - thanks, that HP tablet sounds as though it could be ideal. Do you think it would work wirelessly with the Bose soundlink or one of those little portable speakers? It does seem to have Bluetooth so I am guessing it will. I see it has beats speakers built in so maybe the sound would be good enough anyway.

I_have_spoken

If he as an iPod and knows iOS, then a 2nd hard iPad 3rd Generation or a newer iPad air - whichever so that dock connector matches the iPod he has.

iOS has a huge array of options for improving Accessibility which a 70 yo will want, given worsening eyesight and hand/eye co-ordination will not get better.

>He would use it mainly whilst abroad on holiday<

Will he get regular access to Wi-Fi? Sending data on 3G from abroad can get pricey even in Europe

Moneymaker

It's a no-brainer. Get him a second-hand iPad.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0&_nkw=ipad&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Install Dropox and set it to backup his photos automatically.