Buying a kindle for elderly relative

[sherwoodforest23]

I want to buy a kindle for my uncle who's in his 90s.

His eyesight isn't great but I'm thinking making the text large will help with that.

So my questions are...

1. what's the best kindle model for simplicity/ease of use? We will do all the set-up for him, but he needs to be able to navigate to the book he wants to read etc.

2. what's the best way to buy it, and buy books in future? I already have a kindle and Amazon account, so need to try to keep it separate from mine. Should I set him up a whole Amazon account in his own name? But then which address/whose credit card to register to that account....?

I'm actually thinking maybe it will be a good idea to get it as a second device on my own account as then he will have access to all my books rather than having to start from scratch....?

I bought one for my DM during lockdown and she never used it. I have it now. Be sure he will actually want or be able to use it. My very techy FIL couldn't manage any of his devices once he was in his 90s. Both my DM and FIL favour/ed real books.

Have you asked him whether he actually wants one? And are you going to fully set it up and maintain it for him?

To be honest, I came here to say the same as the poster above. My feeling is that he won't be able to manage it. I know with my mum, she couldn't or wouldn't try anything new, past a certain age. What about those special glasses you can buy that are super magnifying and have a little light on them too, for ease of use? You put them on over your own glasses so that you can read easily. Actually I've been tempted to buy myself a pair, but it felt like another step in that slippery slope...

Dm has a paperwhite but finds it increasingly difficult to see, even with the large font. Some books can be "read" out loud if text to speech is enabled. She also has a Fire where she can get her kindle books read aloud by voice command but it is also tricky to use.

If you do it, I would get it as a second device on your account unless you think he is tech savvy enough to buy his own books on it. I'd be prepared to spend some time getting it set up with large text size etc and showing him how to use it, charge it etc.
No reason he shouldn't be able to use it if it's all set up but it does depend if he is generally willing to give things a go or very set in his ways.

You know him better than us. Not all elderly people are technophobes. I know a 90 year old who regularly uses email. And a 70 year old who refuses to have a mobile phone. People are different.

I bought my uncle one for his 90th, and he loved it.

Yes, he does want one. But I will set up and manage, so when he wants a few book I will order it (takes about 30 seconds after all)

He's not particularly tech savvy but then do you need to be, for a kindle?

I would have thought eyesight-wise it's better than a book as you can make the text bigger? He can read normal books but struggles a bit in dim light.

My mum has a kindle. I do all the buying, downloading and even opening the book for her so all she has to do is open the kindle and swipe. She isn't good with technology though.

My eyesight is poor (I count as partially sighted)
I use a 10" Kindle Fire to read because I get more screen space for nice big words.
I find the smallest ones have so few words on the page if you enlarge the text that it's not nice to read.

The thing I find hardest is that in the dark I read it with the light off (it's still bright enough for me to read), in the house in the daytime I read with the light about half way up, but if you go outside you need it turn the light right up & you can't see the control to adjust the light, so I have to bring it inside, turn it up then go back out.

I have audio books & regular ones on it.

If he wants one, do you have one he could 'have a go on' first to see how he gets on with it?

I got one for my dad a few years back, who used to love reading & was a programmer back when most people didn't even have a computer & kept up with tech until he retired, but he still just didn't get on with ebook readers - he read them on his laptop screen instead.

I have a Kindle which was a present a few years ago, I am quite tech savvy but the Kindle defeats me. I would rather read a book on my old iPad if given the choice.

I bought one for my Dad and he does not use it. He reads a lot. He just finds reading from the screen hard on his eyes and does not like the large print as he feels he is turning the page constantly.

I find the problem with increasing the font size is that there are then only a few sentances/paragraphs per page, so you have to constantly 'turn the page' which is annoying. As in, the bigger you make the font, the less words you get per page, you know?

Personally I'm thinking he won't use it.

I'd agree you don't have to be particularly tech-savvy for a Kindle. As long as it's already connected to the internet and has books available on it, you just have to press the book you want and turn the pages. Interested to know what @Herbie0987 finds difficult about using one!

About the only thing you could need to do is adjust the brightness as per Brokendaughter's message above, and plug it in to charge it but you could show him how to do that, it's not rocket science.

Most Kindles are quite small (A5 notebook sized) so large print doesn't work well unless you're happy to have only 1 or 2 paragraphs per page. Can you try one first to see if he gets on well with it?

Also the kindle store is hard to navigate for partially sighted or people who need large print as you can't change the display size there, so you'd be better setting it all up as a second device on your own account.

I think buying the books is the easy bit, the difficulty will be him using it. I am late 50s and fairly tech-savvy, yet I constantly find myself accidentally changing the font size or tapping something which highlights a passage or gives me the meaning of a word! Once something like that happens, will he be able to restore it to normal? I also agree with the poster(s) who said that when you increase the font to a larger size you only get a few sentences per page.

Why do you want to buy a kindle for him rather than getting large-print books? You can buy them from Amazon and probably other places or they can be borrowed from the library if you live close enough to him? Our library has a very large section devoted to them and given the demographic of the average library user I suspect most are the same!

If you do it, I would get it as a second device on your account

And put the parental controls on it, so he can't accidentally buy anything. That's what I did when I bought my mother a Fire tablet some time ago. She doesn't use it for reading books, but she does look things up on the Internet and plays Solitaire.

Re the small number of words on the screen, would a tablet with a larger screen with the Kindle app on work better? Only thing is, he might have difficulty holding it, if his hands are at all arthritic.

I would get him an Amazon fire and a library ticket so that he can read as much as he wants and not pay

Agree that basic tablet and local public library ebook app might be easier. Mine uses Libby, once set up and logged in it's pretty easy.

Yes my mum now uses her iPad and gets books and magazines from the library. I think she's pretty much ditched her kindle