Tablet for my Grandma - Many questions.

[Shady IIV]

Hi,

My grandma wants to enter the computer-world with her first tablet. I told her she can get something for 150€ - and a 8GB Nexus 7 is still a bit too expensive so I'm about to get her a Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. I think this might be better for an elderly person as it has a brighter screen ... right?

One thing that really bothers me about the device is that the front camera is not on the middle, but on the side. Is that not really annoying. Guess that means you have to slightly move it to the left to be in the middle?

I never owned an android device, - so I decided to come here and ask the experts for help.

I sadly can't go to the shop with her as I live in a different country. She tried my brothers iPhone recently and said the size of a 7-inch tablet should be great.

I'm wondering about the functionality TeamViewer - I want to use it to control her tablet remotely over the internet. Install applications/change settings and so on. Is that all possible or are there any limitations that I am not aware of?

I heard quite a lot of how bad 'touchwizz' is. Do you think it would be more simple and clear if I would deinstall that. (Not sure what I have to do - guess root the device or make a different rom on it?) - Just curious.

I want to make it all as simple as possible. Only want a start screen with very simple options... Skype, Browser, Youtube, Weather & Settings. (+Teamviewer). Can I remove everything else?

Sorry for the dumb question - I had the tablet in my hand recently (in a store) and saw that it's loaded with looooots of stuff and that there are several (think 5?) pages/tabs right away that I can slide through. Is it possible to deactivate that and have only one locked start-screen?

My mum would try to introduce her to the tablet, but I guess that feature would only confuse them both and they would get lost.

Thanks a lot for any help,
Shady IIV

 

[bhero]

Big difference between iPhone and size 7 tablet. Less than a 10 will be hard. Small keys, small screen kills the optimism quickly. From an elderly man.

I could and did adapt to my Xoom.

 

[Shady IIV]

Big difference between iPhone and size 7 tablet. Less than a 10 will be hard. Small keys, small screen kills the optimism quickly.

Yes, thought so. Thanks for your reply. She definitely said already twice that the iPhone is too hard to type on. She's 74 - and we'll probably mainly use it for Skype and later the occasional youtube video, weather check, pictures or maybe to google a recipe (many months in...). She never used any other "new" technology other than the stuff that was already around when she was young (TV/landline-phone)

.... so I was hoping a 7 inch would be fine. Don't want her to pay double if she maybe isn't going to use it.

What do you think?

 

[tdennis]

I am 70 and use a desk top several hours a day and consider myself pretty PC knowledgeable. I just bought a Tab 2 and am in the middle of setting it up. The small print, keys etc are driving me nuts. Am sure I will get comfortable with it sooner or later but my wife, 68, would have thrown it out the back door by now!
tdennis

 

[Frisco]

I am 70 and use a desk top several hours a day and consider myself pretty PC knowledgeable. I just bought a Tab 2 and am in the middle of setting it up. The small print, keys etc are driving me nuts. Am sure I will get comfortable with it sooner or later but my wife, 68, would have thrown it out the back door by now!
tdennis

 

[bill_in_mtl]

My parents - 68 and 72 respectfully just got the itch as well. They picked up an Asus Memo pad 10.1 for just a little more than a tab 2 7.0

10.1 inch screen - running 4.2.1 android

So far so good - I am their tech support and have almost no system related issues - mostly user issues

Good luck

Bill

 

[hkmk23]

It would seem she will not have "local" support, the Tab 2 7 is a great little piece of kit, but.....for an older person the "keyboard" is great but it pops up so large it hides most of what you are typing and the screen.
Other people also seem to have added some appropriate and really good comments.
Personally I would suggest a 10" model and if you can find someone "next door" who is knowledgeable to help her through the initial setup and learning curve she will be OK.
You did not say what country she is in.
A final comment I heard the other day which I think is very true.......if you want it to work out of the box with next to no learning curve, get an Ipad, but....if you want to tweak it so it does exactly what you want, how you want it, get an android device.
Hope this helps, I have a 89 year old mother in law in another country using a Lenovo laptop purely for Skype! so I know where you are coming from, but fortunately with that I can use "Logmein" and sort out almost all the problems (as long as she did not unplug it to use the vacuum cleaner and run the battery flat--and that does happen!)
Good Luck