birthdays (other people's) are stressful

Birthday shopping for my mother is always faintly stressful, as she is of that class of people that say "anything!" and honest to God, means it. Which does mean everything; she will love socks as she loves kindles as she loves badly glued panoramas. It's annoying.

I've been wanting to get her an ereader or a tablet thing for a while, but the expense froze me; not on my side, on hers. It's one thing, in her head, to pay largish amounts of money for birthday computers or birthday vacuums (don't ask) for her (or birthday origami paper, which possibly was the best gift I ever got her; it almost hurts that all of it was on sale because amazon at the time had no idea that they had the only gold-backed origami paper in the known universe. *sighs*). But even the small birthday camcorder a few years ago made her uneasy. Computers and vacuums (and apparently, origami paper) justify their expense. Small camcorders, even very inexpensive ones that are hardy, are looked upon with suspicion for their apparent fragility and their potential for breakage. This is why her cell phone is like, five thousand years old. It's not that she wont' love it; it's that she will never use it for fear of breakage.

Then I found this:

A tablet thing

It has many, many, many key features to argue in its favor. The most important of which is for the next month to disapprovingly talk about the horrific expense of tablets and casually have amazon open to the current iPad price. Then, subtly, show her a Motorola galaxy and shake my head. Finally, the coup de grace, talk about how I could not survive without my Kindle and loudly talk about how I take my library everywhere. As she knows the cost of the Kindle (as she bought teh first one for me), why, this will look like a bargain!

It'll come early enough that I'll have time to learn to use it myself and load it with things she likes before I hand it over. There's a workaround to getting a kindle app on there, thank God, so we are not at the mercy of Barnes and Noble.

The only thing that annoys me is that this one has gone down four dollars since I bought it. You may wonder about why I don't cancel it and buy again. I tried that. Within ten minutes it went back up and I knew I was beat.

I'll report on it after I have a chance to play with it, but I do like the reviews, especially those who have iPads who give an honest assessment of its strengths and weaknesses, since the main functionality for her is probably going to be as an ereader and some light surfing and playing games. She's not going to want to watch movies on it or television; she hates small screens for that, so from what I can tell, it's ideal for the stuff she does like to do. I'm hoping the app store for this has some crossword puzzles and logic games since she's an addict for those. It's Android, but apparently some of the android games on the regular android store do not work well, but other reviews said they worked just fine, so--*hands*. And if it utterly sucks, I have time to return it and find something better. I'm kind of devoted now to the tablet idea now.

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

I have a friend who has one of those. He liked it but found it really didn't work for pdf files which was why he wanted it. I'd hook you up with him for questions but he's on his honeymoon for then next forever. :D

[seperis]

Ohhh, thank you!

[akacat]

I notice that they have a square trade warranty linked on the page. I've heard great things about those from other nook owners, so much so that I kind of regret not getting one myself. I'm not sure how practical a $30 one-replacement warranty is on a <$100 item, but maybe it would allow your mom to think that it's less fragile?

[starfish]

It is actually hurting me how cheap this thing is, and yet I still DON'T NEED ONE, BOBDAMMIT. As my partner reminds me, I have a functional laptop, a disfunctional laptop, a netbook, a smart-ish phone, and an ereader.

(But it would be so awesome ...)

[seperis]

*glum* Two laptops, a netbook (currently non-functional), a server, and an ereader. To be fair, my smartphone is in my son's possession, since his school is farther away and he takes the bus, but--yeah. *sulks* I don't either, but the price.

*longing*

[lian]

oh, my. This sounds exactly like something I want to get for my mom, too... I was bummed I could not snatch up one of the discontinued HP tablets for her. *researches shipping*

[lapislaz]

Recommendation. Make sure you get her a touch-pad stylus. Unless she's got very tiny fingers. Like Lilliputian.

[joannindiw.livejournal.com]

Er; I think you're aware that the reviews are pretty bad for this? Also- may I ask if you tried hands-on? I think Kohl's department stores carry them, so you could test it out? I guess rooting a nook would be too expensive?

ETA: I had one in my hands for about.. 5 minutes? There is a wireless at my place of work that requires a password inputted into it so you can access the wireless; the browser kept saying there was no internet access rather than popping up the page you could access the internet. *shows hands* Of course, the person who had it just brought the device and none of the documentation, and I didn't have a lot of time to try to figure things out, so.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I just checked again; the reviews are very good for it?

[joannindiw.livejournal.com]

*headdesk* well, whoops? Maybe I had looked in the wrong places? also I had looked several months ago when I was checking into tablets, but, I was not looking for the things you were looking for so that probably was the issue? (figured I'd want a tablet for watching vids while laying down, and surfing the web...)

[joannindiw.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I need to go to a different review site? I'm pretty sure I used cnet - ex: http://reviews.cnet.com/1770-5_7-0.html?query=pandigital&tag=srch&searchtype=products being the review in question. I can't give a proper review personally since I only had it in my hands for a very short period of time. Also, not tech-savvy, me.

[fyrdrakken]

Congrats on finding a really good gift! (Dang -- I'm currently actively looking forward to my own birthday and as usual being taken by surprise that my mother's birthday is eleven days afterwards, just like it is every year. Need to start contemplating. Of course, she's watching me hand-knit a lace shawl for her for Xmas, so I can probably get away with a T-shirt for her birthday. And I think I've got a few bookmarked.)