Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0" Wi-Fi

Reliable And Cheap – Reasonably fast. Runs all the basic apps. Screen quality is okay but not excellent. Price is reasonable (~$250) because this is Samsung's cheap basic tablets. I would recommend this for everybody. I purchase one for my sister (20 years old) and one for my mum (60 years old). My sister doesn't really need a tablet but I got it for her because… Read more

her previous tablet can not be upgraded to Kitkat. The newer OS is needed to access new apps. Her previous Tab 7.7 (release in 2011) is still working great.

I got this for my mum because I want to open a new window for her to socialize with her friends and relatives.

Advantage found after my sister’s use

- Great battery life.

- Size makes it sufficient for her to easily carry around everywhere. Fits in a small space in the kitchen so she have something to watch while doing the dishes.

- Fast enough for her to run a bunch of apps (tumblr, facebook, email, google, youtube,playing games).

- Light

Advantage found after my mum’s use.

- Easy to access buttons.

- A great device to communicate with people overseas (using wechat).

- Easy to type in her native language (Chinese can be written using her finger).

- Cheap to own (compare to her friends that bought the expensive iphone/ipad 4G to use wechat/whatsapp, her tablet is only ~$250).

- Easy to use camera.

- Able to take pictures of letters and send them for me to read.

Both tablets I bought are the wifi version. Meaning I don’t have to worry about them racking a huge phone bill. It relies on the home wifi, which is what they should be using anyway.

As kids mode is available for android, I can install the kids mode in my mum’s tablet so that she is only limited to only the essential apps and functions she required. As she is old and impatient, she can literally randomly hit any icons and buttons without worrying about tablet changing a core setting. If anything unusual happens all she have to do is push the home button. Samsung kids mode is cute and great for small kids. But for controlling teenagers and helping older people like my mum I recommend "Kids Place - Parental Control". My mum gets annoy when she moves a mouse to the edge of the table or her finger hits the edge of the trackpad. Tablets are a lot easier for the technologically challenge as it means whatever they want to access is at the point of a finger. With the kids mode in place they are able to use their main apps without worrying about something popping up.

The only negatives side of things are

- Low quality camera.

- Lack of flash for camera.

But for my mum and my sister, taking a picture isn’t essential. So it makes little sense for me to spend double the price on a higher quality tablet.