Hi Tony-
I met you at the pool a few weeks ago and you kindly offered to help me with my computer. If your are still up for it, let me know
Thanks,
Gretel
(phone number)

Originally Posted by xxxxts

I have a story I wanted to share with all of you, it has 3 elements; a 67 year old German woman with no computer knowledge at all, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 16GB and myself.

I recently rented out my large house and get a small condo directly on the beach (I know what you're thinking; rust). My first day here I had to reset Home Owners Association remote and I did not know the code or the phone number - so I asked a fellow in the gate. His name was Jerry - a 57 year old drunk former lineman who has been living here for 17 years, he was nice enough to help me reset the remote and gave me a little tour and told me what's what. At one of the pools there was a group of women, aging from mid 20's to 70's drinking wine in sunhats. I introduced myself and I said, "I have a large collection of power tools so if anyone needs any help on anything feel free to give me a call, I am also good with computers as well." I told them what unit I was in and I was on my way.

About a month later I look under my door and there is a note from a



I gave Gretel a call and she explained her problem so I took a stroll to her place, she was a 67 year old German woman who used to work for Pan American Airlines who is constantly talking about champagne and caviar, adores the comedian Jon Stewart, and has a computer running Windows 98 that won't go online.

I looked at it and I immediately cringed - she said she uses it about once a day to check her GMail, look at a German news paper, and online banking. Turns out the problem was she unplugged her DSL model to vacuum and the prong that went into the outlet came loose, I fixed it and we got it working again. However, I could hear the hard drive dying. I told her, "This thing is really old - you're going to need to get a new one soon - it will not last much longer"

She simply did those 3 things, German news paper website, Online banking, and GMail. She also did not know how to type, more of a hunter and a pecker, she stated very bluntly, "All the women who knew how to type when I were young were bimbos and became secretaries!" She also HATED wires.

I suggested she pick up an Android Tablet, I went online using IE6 for her and I thought the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 16GB was perfect for her. She said, "OKAY! BUY IT!" and gave me her credit card! I told her that this device does not have a RJ45 jack for her internet and she would need a wireless router, she said "FINE!" so we also purchased one of those from NewEgg - the total coming out to under $600 with tax.

The day it arrived she gave me a call and I took a stroll over to her place, set up her router and started up the Android 2.3.1 tablet. This was my first time really getting HANDS on with it. First we enabled both German and English keyboards, sync her GMail account up, etc. I was fairly impressed. I put shortcuts to her German news paper on the desktop, as well as her online banking. I gave her around an hour tutorial on how to use it and I told her everything it could do - she said, "DO NOT TELL ME ANY MORE! I AM GETTING OVERWHELMED!" (Video chatting was not something she ever wanted to do or learn about.)

In an hour she easily accessed her email, composed emails, viewed attachments, did her online banking, and read her German news paper in portrait mode on her deck while getting a tan and seeing/listening to the waves crash. You could tell she was amazed by the device and absolutely loved it. (She tried to pay me a couple hundred dollars, but I declined)

A day later I got another note under my door thanking me for all my help and she was praising the Samsung 10.1 Tablet. It's been a week and she loves it, and she sends me via email YouTube videos of Jon Stewart on FOXNews! (she previously did not know what YouTube was)

Even though she would most likely never take her tablet out of her house, except to show her friends, the Samsung 10.1 Tablet was PERFECT for her. And I must say after getting my hands on it, I was very impressed. The size was great, Android 2.3.1 is very impressive, it would never replace my desktop but it would make an excellent travel companion replacing my Samsung Q1U UMPC from days of yore. Once it drops in price around $100 or so I will MOST DEFINITELY be picking one up. The largest con for me is no SD card reader. With that beautiful screen I could imagine loading up a 8GB SD card with a few films and watching them on a plane ride.

The other options I would look at are the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (MicroSD) and Sony Tablet S (SD & IR).

Originally Posted by BigBadGuber!

Great story. I am curious why you didnt get ipad 2? I bought it for my mom and mother in law. They love it.

Originally Posted by cincibluer6

Cool story. Glad to hear she took to it right away.
Seems like people like her will really get proper use out of tablet.

Personally though, I'm waiting for ICS. Gingerbread is nice, but not optimized (obviously) for tablets if you ask me. My Nook Color is fine but I hope that ICS takes fuller advantage of the screen space (something that Honeycomb does but they unfortunately didn't release the source code.)

Originally Posted by xxxxts

I don't know much about Android or ICS, but I have messed around with earlier tablets and my UMPC has a 7" screen. That being said the Samsung 10.1 Tablet would fit my needs for a week trip, it was not a chore to type on (it was just as good if not better than the iPads on screen keyboard), web browsing was excellent, media player could have used some work, but over all it sure beats my UMPC with 3hrs of battery life running @800MHz single core. Right now I would have to say those 3 tablets are the best alternative mobile devices for light travel.