Phone for 85 yr old

Archergirl

I have a friend of 85 who wants to get a phone to video chat to her son and grandchildren in France.
She asked me a look a while ago and I found a good deal but that seems to have gone now and I am confused by a guy in Tesco who said she would need a lot of data for video calling.
She doesn't have a lot of income and I am tying to find an easy to use phone that would do what she wants at a reasonable price,  any ideas welcome x

Neil_Jones

Data is not needed providing there is a home wifi/internet connection.

Archergirl

She doesn't have WiFi, hence needing a phone x

pbartlett

the cheapest data in most cases is three

have a look and buy a pay monthly sim-only contract say 40gb - 60gb or so

as far as the phone does, buy a second hand galaxy s10 or s20 from eg musicmagpie on ebay.

getmore4less

What's the budget for the contract?
Have the networks been checked in the use location.

Might be worth trying the chosen video app an trying to estimate data use

30GB for  £10pm is a guide.

If you want to consider cashback options you can get unlimited for £7pm

https://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/broadband-phone-service

tacpot12

I got my Dad a Doro 8040 Smartphone, which he is getting on with ok.  He's 85. He uses GiffGaff Pay-as-you-go, but doesn't do video calling.

The amount of data that they will need for video calls will depend on the application used, and the applications they can use will to some extent be determined by the types of phones that her son and grandchildren have. So, find out what sort of phones they have, and what applications they are already using for video calls, and research the bandwidth need by those apps. Pick a tariff that allows your friend to make as many calls as they want to be able to make in a month based on the traffic needed by those apps. 

Do check that they really don't have WiFi at home. Many old people have WiFi without realising it. 

Neil_Jones

Remember in receipt of certain benefits and eligibility a landline with broadband can be as little as £10 a month:

https://www.bt.com/help/landline/getting-set-up/help-people-with-impairments-or-with-particular-needs/how-do-i-find-out-more-about-bt-basic-

IIRC you get 15Gb of "data" a month on this as standard.  And it will work with the video calling thing as well whatever phone you go for.

Archergirl

I have asked her son in France what app he is using, maybe she can ask her neighbours what network they are with.

macman

Does she have a landline phone at home? If so, and there is no broadband with it, she is probably on an old and very expensive BT legacy contract. So it may well be worth getting a new phone contract with broadband included: this should cost less overall if my hunch is correct. Look at budget providers such asPlusnet, invariably cheaper than BT for exactly the same service. You can add broadband even to a BT Basic contract. This will come with a wifi router and a decent amount of data included, so all she then needs is a cheap Android smartphone or tablet to use for video calling. if the phone is not gong to be used for anything else outside the home, then a tablet is by far the better option due to the much larger screen size.