I.e., advice on advising someone on buying a computer.
I dunno. I'd still be reluctant to advise someone to just a tablet. While it probably would satisfy a large number of people's needs, I'd be worried about that one must-have game or app that they'd get a hair up their butt about wanting that wouldn't be available outside of Windows or a Mac. (Bigger screens and keyboards are nothing to sneeze at, either.)
Or maybe I'm finally (shut up) betraying an increasing old-fogeyness in my technical recommendations.
At any rate, the more fundamental advice here is sound: never recommend anything you won't be willing to support.
(h/t +George Wiman, via http://goo.gl/9zcxzJ)
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I still don't have a tablet myself. I keep meaning to get one, but the cheap ones are all made by companies I've never heard of and the ones I have heard of are expensive enough that for a little more I could just buy a laptop.
I don't really have a need for a tablet. I'd like to have one so I'd know how to support them better, but I don't need one.
That's been my dilemma. I actually have a decent Samsung 7", but it gets used mostly for games. We keep trying to think of a niche for using one, but honestly between our smartphones and our (in the family room) computers, it just doesn't ever seem to be necessary.
+Les Jenkins & +Dave Hill you want to say me, that having some tablet as surf and browsing device in the living room does not help. I used to surf a lot on my phone for a while, but somehow I do not like the small screen any more.
+Frank Nestel If it's a choice between a tablet and a smartphone, then, yeah, the former wins for a decent-sized screen.
As I mentioned, my wife and I (and my daughter, for that matter) have our computers in the family room, accessible at all time unless I'm literally sitting on the couch (which is a conscious decision to be away from the computer), so the need for a tablet is a lot lower.
If I had a tablet that used something other than WiFi, I can see more uses (I'd probably favor it over my phone while commuting on the train). But, even with that, the need, for me, for a tablet is (somewhat frustratingly) too low to justify the cost of getting one.
I got a refurbished tablet to use as an e-reader for books and comics (hence the 10.1" screen). Now it's having trouble booting. Ugh.
Tablets are actually surprisingly useful for older folks, because they're cheap, easy for you to set up for them, don't have a lot of settings that are easily screwed up, touch interfaces are very intuitive, and most of their needs can be met with simple apps. Even if they need to type, a Bluetooth keyboard and a stand will get them that far.
To anyone that needs a full computer but doesn't need to program or game, I generally recommend low-end/refurbished consumer laptops, because they're cheap, easy to set up, and get the job done.