My mom doesn't really know how to surf on a computer but she's able to manage with a 4 year old Acer Asprice 10.1 tablet - I've given her 3 new tablets and she always prefers the clunky old Acer for whatever reason.
maybe because she already get used to it i happens on me before i brought my dad a sony ericson p700i and he kept on using it until last year that the phone is really need to rest in peace i gave him my 2nd phone which is iphone 3 but he kept on saying that he wanted the p700i he said that he already memorize the feature of the phone and it was easy for him than the iphone which ohh well i hope that there is still someone who is selling that kind of phone here in my country
@OP try to gave him a samsung note or mucg better the big screen like ipad 3 get him into interesting games first then eventually he will learn how to handle it if you know something that might poke up his interest put it on the tablet like ebooks if he love to ready etc it takes time for our old folks to learn