During this past week I have been enlightened about tablets. I am not referring to the small pills that we pop when we are unwell or about any of the vast array of vitamin and mineral supplements that come in tablet form. I am on about the tablets that can be used as very portable personal computers.
I have never been a fan of tablets as in my mind they were too small and lacking a decent keyboard, but my opinion was based on what I had seen and not what I had learned.
My dear old Mum….Please don’t tell her I called her that, but it becomes her….Has been hell-bent on getting a tablet for herself. A couple of her friends had iPads and then my sister got one and she decided that she wanted one too. She kept asking me for advice on buying one and I had to be honest and tell her that I knew nothing about tablets. I didn’t know how they worked or what the big ooooahhh was about them. They just didn’t interest me.
She was fixated on buying an Apple iPad as someone told her that they were the best, then someone else told her something else and she was starting to get a little confused. We actually went on Amazon together to check out the price of iPads and what they had to offer compared to other tablets.
I am not keen on Apple products myself, as good as they seem they are greatly overpriced and fool people into believing that the greater price is warranted by the superiority of the product…We were always Nokia phone lovers in our family, until my husband went to the other side and got an iPhone, since then any phone conversations we have had sound like he is talking underwater. I blame his iPhone as nothing else has changed. His phone does have some pretty nifty apps on it, but no niftier than lets say a Samsung or Nokia smartphone.
Anyway, when I saw the price of iPads and my Mums face drop, I thought it was time to step up and learn what I could about tablets, in order to help Mum make buy a tablet that will suit her needs without being ripped off.
I started researching tablet reviews and how they worked and whether it was worth paying the extra for an iPad or if other tablets were just as good. At the end of my research, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth paying double the amount for an iPad, when Mum could buy an equally good tablet for almost half the price.
In the end she settled on buying a Lenovo ten inch tablet for under £200.00. The reviews were great for it and she seemed happy just by the fact that finally she had a tablet winging it’s way to her.
She received it ten days ago, then asked me if I could set it up for her. Until then I had never held a tablet let alone used one, but I agreed and set about setting it up as she wanted.
After two days of blood, sweat and tears, I got it set up as she wanted. It was in fact a lot easier than I thought it would be. Android apps are wonderful little creations designed to make life easier when using and setting up an Android tablet. The main problem I encountered was with Mums passwords and user names.
Bless her…And I very nearly did!….Her idea of making a note of her passwords was to literally jot them down hastily in a notebook, without usernames and without double checking them.
She had two Skype accounts, with incorrect passwords, two different passwords for her emails and a username that she failed to jot down so I thought she had been hacked!
After finally sorting out what was what and resetting passwords that were written incorrectly, her Lenovo tablet was all set up and ready for her to use….And she loves it!
I chose the word enlightened as my Word Of The Week as I now feel enlightened about tablets, I can now understand why people find them so handy and I also know that the keyboards on the screen actually work very well, once you get used to them.
I have been enlightened to such a degree that I wouldn’t mind one myself, I spend a lot of time out and about, acting as taxi driver and waiting around doing not a lot whilst Greg’s has his therapies. I can see that with a tablet I could do things online whilst waiting, I could use that time to blog and to interact on social media, both things I wish I had more time to do….One Day!
I also hope that this week has been enlightening for Mum too. I hope that she has now realised the importance of writing down passwords and usernames 100% correctly. I have also stressed to her the importance of keeping them in a safe place at home away from her PC and tablet.
Have you had any enlightening moments this week?
Copyright © 2014 Debbie Roberts
© 2014 – 2015, Debbie. All rights reserved.
Rebecca says
Debbie Roberts says
Jen@JENerallyInformed says
Debbie Roberts says
The Reading Residence says
Debbie Roberts says