Mobile phone for 10 yr old

cfre

Hi i'm looking for a smartphone for my 10yr old son for christmas.

I'm looking for one that is easy for gaming and he'll mainly be using it for calls & texts.

Has anybody got any suggestions on good deals under £15 per month please?

Thanks.

:xmassign:

new_owner

Something cheap and cheerful and not under contract.

If you have to get a 10 year old a smart phone buy it under pay as you go so you can control the usage.

They will break it.

Then it will depend on you budget as a present.

balletshoes

new_owner wrote: »

Something cheap and cheerful and not under contract.

If you have to get a 10 year old a smart phone buy it under pay as you go so you can control the usage.

They will break it.

Then it will depend on you budget as a present.

I absolutely agree with this - payg for a 10-year old, and have a look here for ideas for a cheap phone on payg which you can play games on -

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/pay-as-you-go/deal-finder

horsepills

cfre wrote: »

Hi i'm looking for a smartphone for my 10yr old son for christmas.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

themull1

Tesco cap their tariffs so maybe better than a payg?

thatsean

Please don't buy a 10 year old a smartphone on a contract. I don't care how smart your kid is, they will accidentally phone Guatemala and then you'll be on here asking what you can do about it.

Go for a PAYT model, CPW have an LG going for #40 at the moment.

mazza111

I disagree with that completely. Both my kids had contracts from an early age and haven't once gone over the allowance. But... if they had, they would have to have paid for it, not to mention having a sore Aris.

But in saying that, there are some very good PAYG smartphones out there... Have a look at the thread on the mobile phones thread, which may suit you a lot better. The huawei gets very good reviews on here

horsepills

mazza111 wrote: »

I disagree with that completely. Both my kids had contracts from an early age and haven't once gone over the allowance. But... if they had, they would have to have paid for it, not to mention having a sore Aris.

How would you expect a 10 year old to "pay" for extra charges?

mazza111

horsepills wrote: »

I disagree with that completely. 1) just because your kids didn't go over their allowance doesn't mean contracts are fine for everyone, and there have been plenty of horror stories where it hasn't worked. 2) how on earth could you expect a ten year old to just "pay for it" if they rack up a large bill???

Well that's surely about discipline in the first place isn't it? No ofc contracts are not for every child. That's where as a parent you need to make a parenting decision based on the child. I have to admit, I did have the worries when it was the DS because of the kind of kid he is, however he's done his bit. Just don't think cos some kids do that, all are likely to do it. Base it on your own individual child.

Hence why I disagree with people stating that the OP should only consider PAYG.... Contracts have worked with my 2. It's about education, discipline and trust all rolled into one. So she would need to weight up the options and what the child is like.

IF my child had run up a bill, ofc I would have to have paid it, but I'd make sure he worked his aris off until he had paid it back.


And as themull said, with capped contracts it's even easier

Sagz_2

Don't do it!

I bought a contract phone for DstepS for Christmas one year.... I had to block it by 6th January and, as he didn't pay off the bill it remained blocked for the lenght of the contract. He didn't get birthday or christmas presents for the next year to pay off the over £300 bill he had run up. He was 15 at the time.

We lent DstepD a contract phone whilst on holiday - she went without birthday and christmas presents the next year to pay off the bill she ran up. She was 17.

Both kids swore they would be careful and understood what would happen if they abused the phones.... both still did!

They still ask if we will help them take out a contract :rotfl:

laptop80

Huawei Ascend G300 is a good PAYG option for a first smartphone (just bought one for my dad). You can get one from Very.co.uk for £99. If you sign up for a credit account (can pay it off straight away) you can get up to £30 off your first order. Going through Quidco will get you another 7% back, bringing the cost down to £60-odd.

There are more powerful phones around, but it will play most of the games on Google Play, including Angry Birds etc. For the money you get a lot of phone - a good, responsive screen, plenty of memory and a reasonable processor. It doesn't touch the latest quad-core phones like the Galaxy SIII, but then again it isn't £400.

A heads up - the phone may come locked to Vodafone (some do, some don't apparently). If it does, you can get it unlocked for about a fiver (search "unlock huawei g300" on eBay) so that it runs on any network. As you'll be wanting a lot of data I'd recommend something like GiffGaff - a PAYG option with unlimited data, 250 mins & unlimited texts works out at £12/month.