cell phone suggestions for a teen

[BibbidiBobbidiBOO]

I think our family plan is around $25 for unlimited text and picture messaging with Verizon for all 4 phones. It is $30, but we get 15% off with discount. (MANY places of employment qualify for discounts).

Qwerty keyboard, touch screen, and nice camera were most important to my DD, 14 when she just got her new upgrade phone. She got the Samsung Rogue. DS (18) has the LG enV touch.

 

[BibbidiBobbidiBOO]

I agree that I would let your dd pick it out. Go out, look around, decide on the service. My dd spent months drooling over phones while waiting until she was allowed to have hers.

I completely agree. This was a lot of fun for my kids too. If I had asked them to pick out a new phone for me, they would have picked out something different than what they want. In fact they helped me with my new one and DID pick out something different.

 

[NotUrsula]

I can't say strongly enough how important it is to get UNLIMITED TEXTING. She will text more than you think is possible.

We got our 15-year-old a new phone in September, and the store messed up setting up the service and didn't put the texting package on his phone. It's amazing what 6,000 texts equals when you pay as you go. I got to see what a $1,200 cell phone bill looked like! We did negotiate a deal with Verizon and did not have to pay all that, thank goodness.

If the store messed up your order and you had the receipt that showed that you ordered the unlimited texting, you should not have had to pay more that what that would have cost.

Also, just one other point that has come up in a few similar threads. Several posters have warned against using "pay as you go" service for teens for fear of unexpected high bills. The thing is, it cannot happen with a "pay as you go" phone. If you actually have a "pay as you go" phone, (that is, a prepaid), it is impossible to run up a bill like that. The phone's account carries a balance, and when that balance is exhausted, the phone will no longer work for anything other than 911 calls. They don't allow overdrafts unless you set up automatic credit card top-up, and only a fool would do that with a kid's phone.

It is actually almost always best to start kids out on pre-paid phones, because it teaches them that phone services cost money, and how to budget their use. Our whole family uses prepaids, and we are fine with living inside their limitations, because service for all 3 phones (including unlimited texting for the teen) costs us less than $350/year. I don't know ANY contract plan that will go that low with service for three phones and an unlimited text option.

 

[monkeybug]

I can't say strongly enough how important it is to get UNLIMITED TEXTING. She will text more than you think is possible.

We got our 15-year-old a new phone in September, and the store messed up setting up the service and didn't put the texting package on his phone. It's amazing what 6,000 texts equals when you pay as you go. I got to see what a $1,200 cell phone bill looked like! We did negotiate a deal with Verizon and did not have to pay all that, thank goodness.

monkeybug -- a lot of us can't afford Iphones (and their service) for our kids or ourselves...

I totally understand that a $200 phone is not in everybody's price range. Not knowing the OP's financial criteria I was just recommending the phone my family would choose. We are Military and get a hefty discount at AT&T. Considering all you get in one device I actually consider the Iphone very affordable. It would cost much more than $200 (or $99 if you qualify for the upgrade) for each of the Iphones components separately.

 

[Partridge4ever]

Well, so far the cheapest plan I've found is with t-mobile. $70 a month for us both. That's $40 a month more than I'm paying for just me! The kajeet is intriguing, but I think I'll upgrade to texting myself while I'm at it.

Initial cost of the phone itself isn't a big consideration, since it's sort of a splurge to beign with. Still, iphone has way more features than we need at this time. It's the extra $$$ every month that's getting to me.

I think I'm going to save this for an 8th grade graduation present. It'll give me a few more months to research. And many of you said phones are such a matter of preference, I do think I should let her be the one to pick it out.

Still interested in opinions though if anyone wants to share!

 

[Partridge4ever]

Our whole family uses prepaids, and we are fine with living inside their limitations, because service for all 3 phones (including unlimited texting for the teen) costs us less than $350/year. I don't know ANY contract plan that will go that low with service for three phones and an unlimited text option.

I'd be interested in knowing what company you use if you don't mind sharing. $350 a year sounds great! I'll have to look into prepaids more.

 

[pixiewings71]

I had a Kajeet phone for my DD. It was auto billed to my CC monthly, no texting plan was available at the time. My cc expired and I did not remember to contact Kajeet to update, instead of attempting to contact me they just turned off her phone...no notice at all that they were doing that. It was extremely frustrating to me because I needed to call her and couldn't......I tried to contact Kajeet 3 or 4 times before I finally got someone, she was very rude and told me they would not do anything to help me, so no more phone for DD13. She still has it and uses it for making videos but that's it. I'm considering adding her to our Verizon plan. I can do that for $9.99 a month and we can actually all get new phones, I'm actually considering getting one for DD9 but I think I'll wait a few more years on that one.

I like the idea of taking her shopping without her knowing it....or we might just go to the mall on the 26th and get our new phones and get hers then.

 

[NotUrsula]

I'd be interested in knowing what company you use if you don't mind sharing. $350 a year sounds great! I'll have to look into prepaids more.

Sorry, I miscalculated a bit, because my accounts are a bit older and I'm grandfathered in on one of the rates. New customers can't get it for that; but it can be done for $420/year plus the cost of the phones, which is still better than any contract that I've found with unlimited text. We use Virgin Mobile.

DS doesn't have web access on his phone. DH and I do, but it's a minimum of $1.50/day if we choose to use it, so we don't very often.
(Note that DH and I are NOT big phone talkers; we typically use about 15 minutes per month between the two of us, and it is billed at about $.20/minute.)

This kind of plan works best for us all around; it probably wouldn't if you needed a lot of minutes (though they do have high-minute plans, which are of course accordingly higher-priced.)