"That's nice, honey. Can I check my email on it?"
April 2, 2012 2:54 PM Subscribe
Techie mother's day gift for a non-techie mother.
Important things to note before I go on my long explanation: I will be the one doing the managing of media on this device, whatever it is, and will set it up with everything she might ever want before giving it to her. All she needs to do is keep it charged, really. If we run into problems, either because she pushed the wrong button to change a setting or because of my unfamiliarity with certain platforms (android, etc), I work at Best Buy, so we have plenty of people who know lots to explain to me what's wrong.
So...
I want to get my mum something nice for mother's day, without spending more than about $250. I did some not-so-covert asking, and basically, she wants a smartphone without the phone, preferably with a nice, big screen for her aging eyes.
She and her former husband had some people put an aftermarket bluetooth thingy in their car, which not only is incredibly difficult for her to use (and thus, she doesn't, which is probably a good thing in my eyes), but disabled their radio. She doesn't have the money to have the thing removed or fixed, so my first thought was to check to see if the AUX port on her factory stereo worked. It does. Since I have a spare cord already, I initially thought I'd get her a nice little Sansa Clip+, load it up with stuff, and then she can have FM and her personal music all in one.
But she's also been fascinated with tablets and my iPhone. I think she likes the monkey-paw style of there being no buttons to figure out; just touching what she wants makes it happen. She doesn't like the iPhone (thus ruling out the Touch) because of the small screen, but does like that she can check her email and such on it. I got her to look at the 5" Samsung Galaxy Player and she loved it. But she also loves the 7" devices.
I want to get her the 5" SGP, because I think it combines the good (bigger screen, open platform, expandable memory) with fitting in her purse. But since I've got some time before I need to order it, I'm wondering if there's anything else out there similar that I should be considering. Are there inexpensive 7" tablets that don't suck and aren't B&N/Amazon-made? Or other 5" PMPs? (I am aware of the Philips players running Android, and no. Just no.)
Bonus points for expandable memory and a camera, but neither are strictly necessary.
Important things to note before I go on my long explanation: I will be the one doing the managing of media on this device, whatever it is, and will set it up with everything she might ever want before giving it to her. All she needs to do is keep it charged, really. If we run into problems, either because she pushed the wrong button to change a setting or because of my unfamiliarity with certain platforms (android, etc), I work at Best Buy, so we have plenty of people who know lots to explain to me what's wrong.
So...
I want to get my mum something nice for mother's day, without spending more than about $250. I did some not-so-covert asking, and basically, she wants a smartphone without the phone, preferably with a nice, big screen for her aging eyes.
She and her former husband had some people put an aftermarket bluetooth thingy in their car, which not only is incredibly difficult for her to use (and thus, she doesn't, which is probably a good thing in my eyes), but disabled their radio. She doesn't have the money to have the thing removed or fixed, so my first thought was to check to see if the AUX port on her factory stereo worked. It does. Since I have a spare cord already, I initially thought I'd get her a nice little Sansa Clip+, load it up with stuff, and then she can have FM and her personal music all in one.
But she's also been fascinated with tablets and my iPhone. I think she likes the monkey-paw style of there being no buttons to figure out; just touching what she wants makes it happen. She doesn't like the iPhone (thus ruling out the Touch) because of the small screen, but does like that she can check her email and such on it. I got her to look at the 5" Samsung Galaxy Player and she loved it. But she also loves the 7" devices.
I want to get her the 5" SGP, because I think it combines the good (bigger screen, open platform, expandable memory) with fitting in her purse. But since I've got some time before I need to order it, I'm wondering if there's anything else out there similar that I should be considering. Are there inexpensive 7" tablets that don't suck and aren't B&N/Amazon-made? Or other 5" PMPs? (I am aware of the Philips players running Android, and no. Just no.)
Bonus points for expandable memory and a camera, but neither are strictly necessary.
Response by poster: I own a Kindle Fire and let her test it out, and she hated the interface. We've also test-driven Nooks and I'm ruling them out for the same reason; she found them even more difficult to use (and hell, I am a tech queen and I think they're bloody unintuitive). So it's more a matter of keeping her happy than having anything against it.
posted by iarerach at 3:00 PM on April 2, 2012
posted by iarerach at 3:00 PM on April 2, 2012
Response by poster: She actually bought herself the first-gen iPad and ended up never using it, and it is now in my posession. Too large. Looking for the 5"-7" range to fit in a purse.
posted by iarerach at 6:22 PM on April 2, 2012
posted by iarerach at 6:22 PM on April 2, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Tomorrowful at 2:57 PM on April 2, 2012