The Surface, Nexus or Galaxy are better and cheaper.

Anything but Apple! Fight the POWER!

http://www.anythingbutipad.com/

Thanks for the quick responses guys. My mom is here now and I just read all of the replies to her so she's stoked about the Kindle now. I'm off to get the HD Fire, thanks again folks.

The iPad is a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price!

If she or other members of her family/household use Amazon a fair bit then it's a no brainer; Kindle Fire HD. It's a nice and cheap little tablet that is fairly intuitive.

Otherwise, the Nexus 7 is fairly cheap and easy to use.

And that's what we call an opinion. 

(Don't flash specs at me! This doesn't need to turn into an argument.)

Get the Kindle Fire HD or the Nexus 7.

The iPad Mini would be your cheapest option if you want to go Apple.

Of course it's an opinion.

(I'm not flashing specs at anyone. That's just a link to a website for truth seekers.)  ;)

iPad.

She will love it.

Forget everything thing else for tablets... the others just don't work like iPad works.

A 7 inch tablet would probably not work well for a woman her age because they are slightly harder to work with on the web than a 10 inch. An android tablet will be cheaper and there are a lot of them cheaper than kindle or Nexus.

Nexus 7, it does what the Kindle does but better (at the same price point). Although, iPad/ iPad mini are always worth considering if you have the extra cash.