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Ask Soylent: What Computer to Get Grandma

posted by janrinok on Tuesday November 03 2015, @11:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the over-to-you dept.

Walzmyn writes:

So it's happened; mom's venerable Dell has bit the dust and I'm being called on to find her a new laptop. Everything I've seen here and elsewhere says Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare and we're trusting Microsoft's forced automatic updates to not break the computer. Dell is still offering computers with Win 7 and 8.1, but Microsoft is pushing the OS upgrade hard and heavy. I'd love for her to let me set her up with Linux but she's devoted to Google Picasa (Google not porting their apps is another rant) and I'm not sure how often she's going to be calling me with some Windows only program she needs. And then there's Apple, which makes my fingers itch to type, but it's looking better and better. So, what is the collective wisdom of the Soylentils*?

  1. Is windows 10 really not that bad and just roll with it.
  2. Is Linux finally ready for Grandma?
  3. Stick with 8.1 and turn off all the updates?
  4. Shell out the cash for a Macbook?

*Irony duly noted.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jon3k on Tuesday November 03 2015, @03:31PM

    by jon3k (3718) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 03 2015, @03:31PM (#257971)

    iPad if she's REALLY technically challenged or a Macbook if she's a little sharper/younger. You pay more but you save it in tech support headaches. Also you can get AppleCare for it and just send her to the Apple store with any problems, and feel confident she's not going to spend hours trying to decipher what some outsourced Indian/Pakistani Dell/HP tech is saying ("You want me to dick the smart menu???"). Make an appointment and meet with a "Genius". For the average user, they'll be able to answer any question she's got.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:17PM (#258168)

    I have to agree. Granted, Apple is not significantly better than the alternatives, but the company spends a lot of time trying to keep the user interface lean, clean, and intuitive. It has a slight but noticeable edge in the UI department. Android, Microsoft, and Linux tend to overall be inconsistent and cluttered. Apple may lack certain "efficiency" shortcuts, but newbies generally prefer easy over efficiency.