Today, with more and more kids with cell phones, parents are looking to save money, and still give their kids a phone, so that they can have with them in the event of an emergency. So, when determining which phones are best for your kids, not only are you looking for something which is easy to use, cost effective, and something which your child will love; but, parents must also consider the cost, and what kind of budget they should set aside for a cell phone for their child.
So, when considering phones, you should consider the plan options, family plans vs individual plans, the phones you get with the plan (free vs paid phones), and whether or not you are going to want to sign a contract.
Here are some great phones parents can consider purchasing for their kids, which won’t kill their bank accounts, and will allow them to reach the kids for emergencies at any time of the day:
First off, the Huawei Ascend phone is a great option if you’re looking for a prepaid phone, which you do not have to sign a contract for. There are several advantages with this phone, including: it can be used with prepaid services (metro pcs, cricket, boost mobile, and virgin mobile), it is very affordable (approximately $110 for the phone with no contract), and best of all, you do not have to be tied down to a contract. Other features include a touch screen, a slide out keyboard (or the option to use the touch screen keyboard), it has the android based operating system, and includes games and music download capability. The phone is not perfect though, a few cons are: it features a cheap plastic built frame, the camera quality is not great, it has a non standard 2.5mm jack, and a lot of calls get mixed up and dropped. – Overall it is a great phone for kids. It offers enough features to keep them busy, is affordable, and offers you the option to go contract free. Plus, it allows you to contact your kids any time of the day, if an emergency should arise.
Another great phone to consider is the Pantech Breeze II. This phone offers great entry level features, and is a pretty simple phone. It will require you to sign a contract, as it is sold by AT&T, but it offers cheap entry level rates, and great family plan pricing. Plus, if you sign on with a family plan, the phone comes for free with your new contract. It’s a stylish flip top phone, is very easy to learn to use for children and beginners with a large easy to read keypad for texting, large storage capacity for the phone book, a camera, and other basic features which come on most base package phones. The cons which this phone has are the buttons are some what flat and sometimes get jammed when typing, the camera quality is not the best out there, the screen is fairly small for capturing pictures, and, for kids looking for a “cool,” phone, it is not going to give them the wow factor they are going for. But, for a great entry level phone, which won’t cost you much money, and offers great pricing when you add it to a family plan, the Pantech is a great first phone for your child.
A third phone to consider is the LG Rumor. This phone is also pretty basic. It does feature a QWERTY keyboard for easy texting, is very inexpensive, in fact, it’s free when you sign the contract, offers good call quality, and has a great battery life. The phone does have to be added onto a contract, either with alltell, AT&T, or T-mobile users can purchase the phone. But, when you purchase a family plan, it is only a few extra dollars a month, depending on how many minutes you buy. A few cons from this phone are very slow internet connection speeds, the screen offers low resolution, there are no keys for punctuation (when texting), the camera offers very low mega pixels (1.3), and there is no voice dialing features. But, for a cheap option, to give the kids something to make calls on, it is a great phone to add onto the family plan option.
If all you are looking for is a way to keep in touch with the kids, either incase of an emergency, or to inform them of a change of plans, these phones can easily get the job done. They are cheap options, and will offer you the exact features you are looking for, for the first cell phone for your child.
