So my father has retire to Thailand for the better of 2 decades. Trying to get him better connected with his children. He has a hand-me-down iPad from his granddaughter but the trouble is that it is stuck with iOS 5.x (not updatable apparently) so cannot run Skype (which requires 7.X or later). Too bad because it is in fine shape otherwise. His Yahoo and Gmail accounts are not longer able to run on the built-in mail app (and neither will a hotmail account I created for him) but they will all log in via Safari. Too difficult for him to log in via the web.

Never was one to buy in Apple's deliberate obsolescence strategy so another Apple product is out of the question ($$$ to boot).

Requirements:

• Cheap-ish (<USD 500?)
• Reasonably obsolescence proof (last another 5-7 years which your average Windows machine can easily do)
• Have a big screen (his eye sight is not that great - o.k. for someone of his age)
• Can preferably use a SIM for data (light user so a standard wired internet connection may not be required).
• Available in Thailand
• and lastly, easy to use.

Any suggestions welcome. I'm totally unfamiliar with tablets being a standard general-purpose (i.e., Windows) computer user.