We're getting my 12 year old son his first cell phone in June and are attempting to weigh the pros and cons of prepaid vs family share with Verizon. Our deal breaker is having PARENTAL CONTROLS. GPS would be a nice added bonus but not necessary. My husband gets his phone free through his employer so moving my son and I to a family share plan would cost a minimum of $35 additional per month which I find very expensive but I trust Verizon. I read some good reviews for Kajeet but also some bad. I also understand that the Verizon prepaid phones don't allow for parental controls, so that's out. In your experience, what do you think would be our best option? Thanks!
I don't know about Verizon. We all 3 carry IPhones.
When we started out with our daughter's first phone, around 9, we got Motorola. She's had a flip Motorola and Razor. We both had a Razor for a while and really liked them.
Good luck!
We have Verizon and I love it! I love the parental controls, but they are about $5 each per month. And worth every penny!
i have a virgin mobile optimus v. it's $25/mo for unlimited data, text, and 300 mins of talk time per mo. it's prepaid. it's a smart phone. the battery life isn't wonderful, but it lasts me pretty much all day. and i'm on it all the time looking at apps, online, etc. they do have parental apps thru the andriod market place, plus antivirus, spyware, and gps tracking thru some of the features. i LOVE my phone and it consistantly gets good reviews. looking at the specs of it, it's almost like an iphone 3gs. also if you have to ground your son from the phone for any reason, you won't still have to pay for the service. there was even one review that i read where a woman hadn't activated her phone and was using google voice to make wifi calls, and using a free texting service app. i'm going to give mine to my daughter when she gets older and they come out with a newer version. it does cost some to get the phone as you aren't getting one for free since there's no contract. but you will end up saving in the long run (or you should).
I don't know about the other plans but we have Verizon and pay an extra $5.00 for the parental controls, which really is nice. We haven't had any problems w/ Verizon at all and I know that we seem to have a better coverage area then a lot of people.
Good luck!!
A lot of people swear by the prepaid because they can limit the cost without the monthly surprises.
I personally prefer teaching them the responsibility of managing what they have. If they can't do that, they shouldn't have it.
My only suggestion: Kids can be very cruel and judgmental. So make sure that whatever phone you get isn't going to be ridiculed or he isn't going to be criticized. And usually, due to plan commitments, he's going to be stuck with this phone for the next two years.
Good luck.
My 12 year old has an LG Cosmos family plan thru Verizon. You are supposed to be able to limit texting, hours of use, internet access all online. I just haven't gone and donet that! You can have them compare plans with what you're using now to see if there's one that's about the same $ wise.
Straight Talk. $30 a month for 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and internet time (I don't know how much but I use it daily and have never run out). No contract, cute phones, good prices, good service (never had a dropped call). Don't shell out an obscene amount of money for a cell phone... it's better kept in the bank ;)
