My Mum’s computer appears to be truly borked it runs incredibly slowly has a massively out of date windows system that is no longer supported and takes an age to do anything on the internet 38 hours to down load crapcleaner.
So I want to get her a new one capable of being operated by a bright but totally out dated pensioner it only needs to access the internet emails and some simple word prossessing for the luncheon club she organises .
Can anyone make any suggestions please?

If you can manage linux, stick Ubuntu on it and don’t give her the root password. Install Chrome and/or Firefox, and Libre Office and you’re done. For the simple stuff your Mum needs to do it’ll be fine, and despite the reputation you don’t need to be a geek to use Linux as an end-user, my wife and kids manage fine.

Anything really, an all in one will be simple to set up and switch on/off as.

If she is using windows consider a downgrade to 7 or wait until 10 so it has a sart menu (or install one if you get 8 )

Install the same word processor if possible as Microsoft have redesigned Office and it looks different

iPad.

So much less configuration. Get the Pages app and a wireless printer.

This is exactly what I’ve encouraged my parents into and it has massively reduced all those support calls…

Rachel

don’t make her suffer linux.

a tablet is the best solution for odd folk.

Chromebook.

An Android tablet – possibly a Samsung one with a stylus as an alternative to typing. Sort out the wireless prining for her, too. Google Docs will do for an office suite, with the advantage that you could share access from your own laptop if she needed help.

An x86 year old?

How old is it? You could always re-install.

Agree with Rachel: iPad (or similar Android tablet).

Since my father-in-law got one his visits no longer involve me sitting at his laptop for six hours trying to unpick all the damage since the last visit.

One advantage of the Apple route is you can always point them to the Genius Bar if they do manage to break it somehow.

To counterbalance the iPadists – if she’s familiar with the way Windows works, stick with a similar/the same system. My dad is OK with his old iMac, pretty much ignores the iPad, because it’s all different.

Mint XFCE, Ubuntu, Win7/8[modified, obvs] – anything much the same.

You might be able to setup a Mint XFCE install in an afternoon, and assuming the hardware is OK, it’s likely to run very smoothly. If you’re up to modifying partitions with gparted* you might be able to shrink the Windows partition and keep the original Windows install as well. After install, you just choose the OS you want to load between the POST screeen and the “Starting Windows” screen. With grub-customizer you can change the default option in the menu as well, or add a longer timeout to it [it will autoboot one of the OS’s after a few seconds by default].

Libre Office seems to be OK at exchanging documents with MS Office.

*pretty easy, actually

My parents are happily on Ubuntu 14.04LTS and prefer it to Windows 8. They also prefer the form of a laptop over a tablet.

Very low maintenance, just works.

Chromebook

IPad, stylus, keyboard case and HP wireless printer ( don’t buy any other make of printer as they don’t play happily in my experience of trying to Epson and Canon printers to work. HP perfect straight out of the box)

Keep it simple and buy one of the iPad for seniors books

+1 Chromebook. Easier to type on, and half the price of an iPad.

I should have added Chromebook to my list as well, though managing files can be a PITA – but I guess she’s not going to fill up the local storage with .docx.

Linx 8 tablet, Windows 8.1 and only £100

Tablet.
FiL is as computer illiterate as they come, not had any support calls since I setup his android.
My dad is ok with computers but still manages to get a multitude of problems – except for his ipad.

Chromebook

(typed from a Chromebook – and I have a modern laptop, phone and various tablets to choose from). It just works – fast.

Can we fix the old one?

Thanks very much for the range of useful replys . cougar fixing the old one would be beyond my ludite skills my mum has paid local men in shops quite a lot of money for either no gain or short lived benefit . I am a genious to her as I cleared the row of dots in her password box and typed in my late fathers first name thus mending her email to be fair that is the outer edge of my skill set. I therefore be live a clean start to be the way forward. Her anti virus last up date was 732 days ago .

Just bought my dad a Zbox Pico to replace his ageing desktop, we had got him laptop running Windows 8 (but in classic windows style) but the size of laptop screen & touch pad was problematic for him so didn’t think a tablet would be any good really. Hopefully the Zbox coupled up to a 22″ screen & standard keyboard & mouse will make him a happy silver surfer