Desktop computer recommendations

December 14, 2023 8:26 AM

Hi. I'm looking to get a desktop for my elderly mom, but I'm really not sure what to get. I'm open to most suggestions, but have a few basic guidelines.

- She's even less tech-savvy than I am, so I'm definitely not looking for anything "fancy" that only a very tech-savvy person and/or gamer would really appreciate.
- I've ruled out Macs.
- I want it to have a large monitor - minimum 20 inches, though 24 or greater would be even better.
- I'm leaning towards steering clear of "all in one" computers.
- I want it to be as user-friendly as possible. Her needs are fairly basic: emailing, looking stuff up, occasional online shopping, etc. She doesn't really play computer games other than Solitaire or doing online crossword puzzles.

I guess that's about it. I apologize if similar questions have already been asked. I did a brief search of previous questions and didn't see anything especially similar.

posted by DavidfromBA to Computers & Internet (25 answers total)

You've ruled out macs and wanting to avoid "fancy"/tech-savvy means no linux.

That leaves windows.

In which case, it doesn't matter. Just get a cheap whatever.

If you look at dell inspiron desktops, the $599 one with an i5-13400 and a 512gb ssd is fine.
If you look at hp ready to ship desktops, the $549 one with an i5 and 1tb ssd is fine.
Lenovo has a bunch of basically the same thing at basically the same price.

For any of them... if you don't mind getting a teensy bit down and dirty yourself before you hand it over, you might consider doing a clean install of windows to avoid dell/hp/lenovo crapware that they were paid to shovel onto it. I can't remember offhand whether you need to let it boot into windows once before you nuke and replace.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:49 AM on December 14, 2023

Response by poster: @GCU: Thanks. I neglected to mention, though I suppose it goes without saying, that long-term reliability is important. Meaning, I'm willing to spend more if need be if it's something that lasts at least a few years. I'm assuming that what you're suggesting fits the bill of course, but just thought I'd throw that out there.
posted by DavidfromBA at 9:01 AM on December 14, 2023

Have you considered a tablet at all? It sounds like you want to prioritize screen size and I get that, but honestly my experience of elderly-tech-inept people using devices is that tablets are understandable in a way that a traditional computer never will be.

For example we made sure my grandma had access to a desktop computer starting in the 90s and provided her support, guidance, etc etc. She never got the hang of it, over decades. She was blazing away on a tablet within literally minutes of getting one in her hand (at a time when she had never used a smartphone).

My mom also has always been around computers and is, I would say, very computer savvy and capable for someone of her vintage (boomer). She's had desktops and laptops, windows and mac, knows how to do what she wants to do most of the time. What does she preferentially grab when she needs a computer? Her tablet. Just about every time.

I see the same thing from my less tech inclined coworkers--at a tech company--of all ages as well.

Just a suggestion.
posted by phunniemee at 9:03 AM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

i3 or i5 plus 16GB of memory is technically overkill, but get them anyway; when you get the inevitable 'it's running slow' calls, you will know it isn't the desktop hardware. And these days this isn't an expensive set of requirements.

I got my parents an Intel NUC box years ago, and with absolutely no comparison shopping I just found a NUC for $440 that's better than what I said above; you'd have to buy the OS, keyboard, mouse and monitor separately, though, if that's an issue for you.

Skip past Celerons and especially spinning drives. And check with tablets; my parents just can't, for some reason.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 9:09 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'd suggest a chromebox. Originally they were envisioned as essentially just a browser and they've grown to support android apps and a bunch of other things, but you don't need to add those things. They're pretty bullet proof and easy to maintain. The machines themselves tend to be tiny and can be attached to a monitor any size you choose to buy.
posted by roue at 9:13 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

You don't mention how old your Mom is, but please allow me to try to sell you on an iPad.

Hospital visits, recovery care, and long term care facilities are largely inevitable over time. An iPad can do pretty much every basic task a desktop can, but unlike a desktop, it can follow her wherever her care needs to be needing nothing more than a Wi-Fi connection. No matter how independent your Mom is today, a desktop won't not be helpful after a fall in the kitchen, but a tablet will.

If your Mom wants a keyboard, the iPad Magic Keyboard does a great job of providing a stand and keyboard that beats the keyfeel and durability of many less expensive laptops.

iPads have online backup options where, in the event the current iPad gets lost, broken or obsolete, it is extremely easy to transition to a new one in a way that is generally not the case with a laptop.

For many, the ability to hold a decent-sized screen close outweighs the issues with reading a larger desktop monitor from a few feet away.

I was going to make some points about ease of use, but phunniemee beat me to that. Both of my parents used and were proficient with computers during their younger years, but tablets ended up being far, far easier for them as time has progressed.

Please consider a tablet for her.
posted by eschatfische at 9:13 AM on December 14, 2023 [10 favorites]

You've ruled out Macs, so this may not be helpful to you but perhaps others reading this post:

Currently, Mac Minis are the best value PC you can get at the low end (a new 8GB Mac Mini is < $600 and a refurbished 16GB is less than $700). They are the most reliable, have the longest useful lifespan without dropping down to Linux late in life, and by far the easiest to support. If you have a Mac yourself, screen sharing is built into FaceTime. It will take a lot to break that screen sharing solution, and screen sharing is a must for tech support for older family members.

Low-end MacBook Airs are also a great value and hit all of positive support notes above.
posted by Number Used Once at 9:19 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you're really focused on reliability, would you be interested in building a PC for her? A desktop built with standard components would be much easier to repair if needed than a low-end prebuilt from a major manufacturer. If so, I would build something along these lines:

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/HHTwrH/budget-homeoffice-build

(I wouldn't bother with the optical drive.)

As a bonus, you install Windows yourself, which would be easier than trying to remove the manufacturer's crapware from a prebuilt.
posted by Wilbefort at 9:44 AM on December 14, 2023

I will nth a large tablet in this situation. Add a bluetooth keyboard and a stand, and you have a "desktop" computer that has a touchscreen and will work for most of what you say she will use it for. I believe (but have not tried it) that a bluetooth mouse will also work as a pointing/selecting device for a tablet.

If you really want a large screen, Samsung's Galaxy View tablets are 18.4 inches which might be enough
posted by TimHare at 10:17 AM on December 14, 2023

nthing a tablet. An ipad (I've bought two on ebay for my elderly relatives) is easy to understand, hard to break, and does everything you want it to. I see no advantage to getting a PC or even a Chromebook over an iPad.
posted by hydra77 at 10:19 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks to everyone who responded so far. I'll check in later today and look into everybody's recommendations.
posted by DavidfromBA at 10:43 AM on December 14, 2023

Others have suggested tablets and reconsidering a Mac, both of which would have been my suggestions. You want something easy for them to use, and easy for you to secure and support. But if you must go with a Windows PC, at the very least, create a separate user account for them that is not an Administrator account (a "Standard" or "Limited" account), and really consider not giving them the Administrator password. Once you've got it all set up and configured the way they want it, there's no reason they should need the Admin password, and not having it will help prevent a lot of malware shenanigans from happening in the first place. That alone isn't a single fix solution by any stretch, but it's a huge help. You'll still have access to the Admin account for doing maintenance as needed, but a user not having Admin privileges can be a great first line of defense for minimizing how much time you have to spend maintaining the machine.
posted by xedrik at 11:38 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Even if you're not into the tablet idea, maybe see if a big laptop (maybe a big Chromebook) would work instead of a desktop. My elderly relations ended up moving a lot to laptops and Chromebooks because they're more flexible, they're a lot easier to move around the house or take with you in a pinch. Even a 17-inch laptop is more portable than a NUC+screen+keyboard+mouse.

Chromebooks are the tablets of laptops. Unfortunately I don't have a specific recommendation there, but "A Big Chromebook" is going to be able to do everything on that list other than not quite getting there on screen size.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:45 AM on December 14, 2023

An HP chromebase is maybe an ideal choice here: https://www.newegg.com/p/1VK-001E-4DSZ9. What's ideal here about a chromebook/chromebox is you'll never ever ever have to come over and fix the system becuase some kind of terrible spyware or virus has landed (unless you consider chrome spyware, which, ymmv)
posted by dis_integration at 12:04 PM on December 14, 2023

I hate when people reject the premise of a question, but please allow me to add my voice to the list of people saying to reconsider a tablet. In the 1990s, when my mom was in her 60s, we got her Web TV, a keyboard that hooked up to the TV and allowed her to very generally surf the quasi-web. She liked a few aspects, but never really took to it.

In her early 70s, we got her two different laptops, a "netbook" and something else compact. She never got the hang of a track pad or a keyboard. She is as far from techie as one can be, and while she loved the web, it was ridiculously hard for her to use it for mail, shopping, etc.

One day, a little over a decade ago, I showed her my iPad and she picked it up IMMEDIATELY. Like, even without using the Bluetooth keyboard, it was completely intuitive for her. Her understanding of using the web was transformed. (She's 87 and on "all the socials," as she says, including TikTok. Maneuvering a keyboard is a teeny bit hard for her (because she prefers to use it in her lounger rather than at a desk), but it has been the saving grace for her for the past 5 weeks when she's been dealing with the hospital and rehab after a fall.

Tablets + bluetooth keyboards are ideal for people who want to use a device for "emailing, looking stuff up, occasional online shopping, etc." as you say. So many of my older clients who struggled with finding/understanding anything on Windows computers find that iPads are user-friendly, and the monitor size is a non-starter because they can "pinch open" anything to see smaller details. It's portable, so your mom can have it with her whenever she wants. (FWIW, you can connect an iPad to a big monitor via a cable.)

FWIW, I'm a desktop user so I absolutely get why you're going there, but the flexibility of an iPad (or any tablet + keyboard) vs. a desktop is really worth considering. As for long-term reliability, nothing is meant to last forever, but I'm still using my 2013 iPad; I can't update it, but I still have all the functionality I need for surfing, reading ebooks, etc. But my Mom's latest iPad (she upgraded after 7 or 8 years) is so easy that she or I can Google any question she has and find the solution in about a minute. That never seems to be the case with full-on Windows laptops for non-tech savvy folks.

If you are dead-set on a PC, I bow to the judgment of those above, but given that you said you're not techie, I'm wondering what your plan is to trouble-shoot a laptop PC if your mom runs into trouble.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 12:28 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Go for something with a small form factor so she can pick it up and move it if she needs to. There are reasonably priced and powerful options that are smaller than a hardcover copy of War and Peace. When I did this shopping for my mom a few years ago, I picked one of the HP EliteDesk Mini lineup, and she was happy with it, but all the big names have similar products that would work just as well.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:40 PM on December 14, 2023

Think about the peripherals.

How's her eyesight? If you have keyboard options, get something with big, high-contrast letters on the keys.

How are her hands and wrists? If she has any trouble with them -- or wants to avoid trouble with them -- look for something with good ratings for ergonomics. They have some mice with weird shapes that are supposed to be good for people with carpal tunnel syndrome, for example. Worth investigating, anyway.

Definitely get a biggish monitor if there's room for it. If she's going to be doing solitaire and crosswords and so on, she will be happier with a larger display that fits everything easily without shrinking the size down. Good for cat videos, too.

Does she have a stack of old movies on DVD? Think about an external disc player she can plug in to watch her old favorites.
posted by pracowity at 3:25 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I generally dislike iPads, and even i think that this is like exactly the use case the "big" ipad would be amazing for. Apple overcharges for their direct refurbs, but plenty of refurb sites like backmarket have good looking deals on them.

One of those plus a keyboard would do exactly what you're describing here.

I was a huge skeptic, and disliked using them, but had a very similar experience to wrong kind of cheese with my own mom. She used one i got her pretty much to death and was gifted a fancier one. Her laptop sits discarded in a corner, used once or twice a year for some horrible "you must do this in a browser on a pc/use a specific application" task that is easily relegated to me or her partner stopping by.

If it has to be a desktop, and it has to have a large monitor i second the chromebox suggestion. But my mom was perfectly holding the ipad at reading-glasses distance, and comfortable angle, to be so active on it she started getting into forum wars.

I would also, actually lean towards the 10in model over the giant 12/13in one. The larger one is a bit easier to read, but harder to hold with eldery hands and arthritis etc. I would also lean towards getting a nice thick case that makes it easier to hold than a thin, slippery slab. I do know people who love the giant one though.

I'll also add that ipads have probably the smoothest universal options for scaling up text and the interface of every app with one settings change i've seen on any kind of computer. And it doesn't break apps, and just works. I honestly think that's a big part of the success of them as computers for limited eyesight. After many many years of IT admin stuff, it was hard to believe you could just set that option and have it just work. No glitches, no inconsistencies, no broken apps... just big text and buttons.
posted by emptythought at 5:16 PM on December 14, 2023

I have tougher use cases than your mom, and I’m still considering just getting an iPad when the formerly-Windows, now Linux laptop I’m using gives up the ghost. I’d be able to respond to texts with a physical keyboard if I want! Apple devices are usable for so long. My dad has an iPod touch (yep, iPod) I bought him used years ago and he’s still happily using it to listen to music and do sudokus and other light hobbyist stuff. My mom struggles with Windows despite using it consistently for decades and has zero issue using her iPad. I wish it didn’t make so much sense to buy into the Apple ecosystem, but it often does.

(There are also all sorts of pillows and support arms designed to make it easy to use tablets on the couch or in bed, there’s just a lot more aftermarket options to make things work for changing abilities beyond the good accessibility features built in to iOS.)
posted by momus_window at 5:54 PM on December 14, 2023

I'm in my mid-seventies and I love my chromebook. If I need to I can easily make anything on my screen larger. It has a built-in keyboard, it's essentially like a little laptop. It's very light and portable and the battery charge lasts for 10-12 hours. It's cheap, mine cost a little over 200 bucks. It easily does all the basic stuff and, if I want it to, it can be tied to my android phone.
posted by mareli at 10:15 PM on December 14, 2023

Nthing the chorus.... of I think your mom wants an ipad. The other bonus is if you buy AppleCare (extended warenty)... your mom will get up to 3 years of an actually helpful in person or over the phone tech support from someone who isn't you. If your mom wants a bigger screen, an ipad can be connected to most modern TVs.
posted by oceano at 1:18 AM on December 15, 2023

Coming into this thread late. I've been down this road with two sets of parents.

I've tried all of the suggestions above and found that there wasn't a one right answer. For my mom, the tablet just didn't work out and I ended up with a Windows computer for her. Microsoft does a good job on accessibility and I ended up using every feature to tune the computer to work for her. For my wife's parents, a Windows computer gradually became too much and the right solution ended up being a chromebook. My main advice would be that you should be prepared to swap for a different device/form factor if your first choice doesn't work out and that it can change over time.

All of them end up requiring some amount of maintenance/troubleshooting. Windows is the one where I would say you'll want to set up a remote login and be prepared to administer it remotely (ask me how I know). I'll skip specifics on that, it could be an entire ask.meta question on its own. For the Chromebook, I've had to powerwash once on a visit, and for the iPad, even with auto updates turned on, there would still be tweaking. For an android tablet (yet another parent), I absolutely have to scrape off bloatware every visit to get it into a runnable state.

There are peripherals that help, maybe a lot. Examples: getting a stylus for the iPad (I found one that is the size of a magic marker, easy to grip); getting a Blue Yeti microphone for the PC to use Cortana as a voice interface.

None of these form factors (PC, chromebook, tablet) turned out to be a solution for all tech needs. Reading was still better on an e-reader (Kindle for one parent, Kobo for another), listening to audio books also ended up being a separate solution (Books on Tape for one parent, using the Kobo for another). TV with a Roku box instead of streaming on the computer.

Good luck!
posted by BlueTongueLizard at 6:58 AM on December 15, 2023

Response by poster: UPDATE, FRIDAY 12/15: A number of you have mentioned laptops, and I'm thinking that might not be a bad idea. I trust that for someone whose Internet needs are as basic as hers, there wouldn't be much difference if any in terms of longevity, reliability, functionality, etc.? So if a desktop would not be the best option (which seems to be the general consensus here), could anybody recommend a good laptop with a large monitor? As for pads, I'm hesitant to go that route, if for no other reason than A) I've never used one myself, and B) I type reasonably fast with a standard keyboard, but slow as molasses with anything else, such as my android phone. (I realize pads are bigger than my phone, but still.)
posted by DavidfromBA at 7:07 AM on December 15, 2023

Response by poster: Addendum to previous message: I suspect my mom would also struggle to type with anything other than the standard keyboard she's used to, hence my mentioning that.
posted by DavidfromBA at 7:13 AM on December 15, 2023

I tried this 17" HP, but it was too damn big for me. This is the 15" one I have currently.
posted by kathrynm at 11:28 AM on December 15, 2023