The geek forum +Slashdot has an "Ask Slashdot" feature, where you can ask the community recommendations on tech. I ran into a question from yesterday where the author asks for help in replacing his mother's dead desktop, 2,500 miles away. The nut question - is a tablet good enough?
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/01/05/1938232/ask-slashdot-using-a-tablet-as-a-sole-computing-device
The answers throughout the post may surprise most, but not me...
Chromebook: http://www.google.com/chromebook