If you've been looking at a simple tablet for an older parent — big buttons, the locked-down kind, usually sold with a family app and its own mobile connection — you've probably felt the pull of it. Big, clear, and a screen you can picture your mum actually managing. For some families it's exactly the right thing, and there's no shame in buying one.
Before you do, though, it's worth an honest look at the option that's usually sitting on the desk right in front of you: the computer they already own. Here's the fair comparison — a new monthly cost, the new thing to learn versus what the old PC can still do — not just the one-sided sales pitch.
What a simple tablet gets right
Let us give credit where it's due. The better ones are genuinely considered devices: deliberately simple, large and clear, with a family app for calls and photos, and often their own mobile connection so there's no home Wi-Fi to wrestle with. If there's no working computer in the house at all, or the person has never got on with one, a purpose-built tablet is a ready-made solution just waiting to go.
Three questions to ask before beginning a monthly subscription
- Is this another new device to learn? The PC on their desk is familiar furniture — twenty years of the same keyboard and mouse is a well engrained habit. A tablet is a new object with a new way of doing everything, and a touchscreen isn't always easier for someone whose hands know a mouse. Sometimes the new device is a step sideways, not forwards.
- What does it cost every month? This is the big one. These tablets are usually sold on a subscription basis — commonly around £40 a month, which is roughly £780 a year, and a bill keeps arriving for as long as they use it. A computer they already own has no monthly cost at all: it's already paid for.
- Is the computer really finished? Often the PC hasn't broken — it just got harder to use, and drifted out of use. That's usually fixable in an afternoon, with the accessibility settings already built into Windows, for nothing — which is the whole of **what actually happened to your parent's computer**.
Is there a free way to do it?
Yes — and it's only honest to say so. There's free software that turns a Windows PC into a simple menu of large buttons, and if cost is the whole question, it's worth seeking out. The trade-offs tend to be the same across these tools: they're often older, their video calling leans on services that are being wound down, and there's no "set it up with the family, with help from afar" story built around them.
Where we fit: the computer they own, paid for once
We built My World for the gap between these choices: the Windows computer may already be in the house, turned into a calm screen of a few big buttons — paid for once, with no subscription — set up with the person by someone they trust, with video calling built in and no account for them to manage.
The trade-offs worth knowing before you decide: it's Windows-only. The video calling is in testing with families, and the reliable direction is family calling in — the person's computer waits and rings. And it's a friendlier way to use a computer, it is not a medical or safety device — any pendant alarm or care arrangement stays exactly as it is.
None of this adds up to "cheaper and better than a purpose-built tablet." That isn't a claim we can stand behind — it depends entirely on the person and how they'll use it. The honest case is simpler: before committing to a new device and another monthly payment, it's worth taking a proper look at the computer you already own.