Advice Low Cost Smartphone Contract

[Rubber Bullets]

My daughter will be 11 shortly, and off to secondary school, so it seems about time that we get her a phone. we want to spend as little as possible, and she wants something that won't embarrass her in front of her friends.

One compromise seems to be an HTC Wildfire S which she likes the look of, and can be had on some pretty cheap contracts (£10.50 per month from Orange for example).

There are some online shops that offer these tariffs with cash back too, making them even cheaper, but are there any pitfalls? I notice that they all come with 'Free insurance the first month £7.99 from then on, can be cancelled' type bollocks to trap the unwary, but is there anything else to worry about?

I'm surprised how many of the tariffs have no data allowance, though I use very little with my Sensation as I am able to connect to wifi most of the places I go, I imagine that it is easy to get caught out pretty easily as so many apps will use data.

My inclination at this age is to go for a tariff that is light on minutes, heavy on texts and gives a bit of data, then tell her that she must only call in case of emergencies, but can text her friends all she wants. Does this sound reasonable?

All help and advice very welcome.

RB

 

[Zenith.UK]

Tesco Mobile have the Wildfire S on a £10/month contract. 100min/5000txt/500MB
http://shop.tescomobile.com/mobile-phones/pay-monthly/htc/wildfire+s?deal=5693
You can cap that as well, so she can't run up additional cost beyond her allowance. Tesco uses the O2 network for the backhaul.

If you go with the Wildfire S on O2, you can get 200min/unl.txt/100MB + 250 O2-O2 minutes for £18.50/month.

Your best bet might be to visit http://www.omio.com/ , pick a phone then play with the sliders to get something that ticks most boxes.

 

[GReaper]

I'd suggest avoiding a contract to make it impossible for her to create any problems. If she's on PAYG and somehow uses up all the remaining credit (accidentally or otherwise) then you aren't going to be having any issues.

The Wildfire S is around £130 if you buy it upfront, the other cheap Android phone which seems to be good value is the Huawei Ascend G300 at around £100, but that one would need unlocking. Use giffgaff (referral link), £10/month for 250 mins, unlimited texts and data (fair usage applies).

 

[Poag]

Also giving your kid, means you can turn on altitude and locate them if/when needed by phone.

This is also probably the best deal/phone I can find

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/SAMSUNG-GALAXY-Y/PPAY the Three deal. few mins, lots of txts and loads of data. So a £15 top up each month gives all the stuff. So its, imo, contract-lite. She goes over her mins and stuff stops working.

Its a galaxy Y which is a last 12 months phone, Samsung so its fairly well made. Also comes in pink which i'm sure she will love Make sure you install things to SD card tho or you may run out of space. It'll also take some fairly beefy SD cards up to 32gb.


Same sort of deal, different phone
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mo...AMSUNG-GALAXY-MINI-THREE/PPAY&clearance=false

If you ha s anose around there there are a few decent deals on semi decent phones.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

That's brilliant guys, lots to think about there, but like the idea of the Tescos one, especially with the caps. All great ideas though, and I've got a week or 2 to think about it.

RB