Help me pick a mobile phone for my boys

[easylife73]

I am totally useless at technical stuff, so keep it simple!

My boys are 14 and 12, and both at secondary. DS1 currently has a very cheap PAYG that literally does texts & calls, DS2 has nothing yet.

They would like brand new, all-singing, all-dancing, could run the world on a good day mobiles, but that's not gonna happen! What they can have, is something that is touch-screen and fairly modern, camera, and that they can get apps on. Probably PAYG as we need to keep the costs down, although I don't want them to be able to run up massive bills on the internet or anything.

Any recommendations?

[bryonyelf]

Giff gaff run off 02 and seem to be good with allowances. As for phones May be Nokia but in all honesty shop around on the comparisons sites and also quidco and topcashback. Sometimes taking a contract can be cheaper. I recently got a galaxy s4 for DH on Vodafone. £19 a month with a free samsung tablet and £70 cashback on quidco.

[bryonyelf]

If you go onto car phone warehouse the samsung galaxy fame is £13 a month with a free tablet.

[orangepudding]

Have a look at Tesco mobile. You can get contracts for as little as £7.50 a month and you can cap it too so they don't run up huge bills. I wouldn't get PAYG if a phone uses data.

[easylife73]

Thanks for the replies...the carphone warehouse deal looks pretty good, and it comes in two different colours, so could get them one each...the same but different!

[myotherusernameisbetter]

I 2nd Tesco - you can cap the phones and if you get two they get a family bonus which in our house we took as an extra 250mb of data.

[easylife73]

We've gone with the deal from Carphone Warehouse (thanks bryonyelf!) as we managed to get two lots of £25 cashback via Quidco as well. Phoned them up and apparently we can cap it as well (thanks orangepuding and myotherusernameisbetter as I probably wouldn't have thought about that.

My next request is ideas to make the parcel more interesting on Christmas morning...I'm planning on wrapping it up like a pass the parcel in bigger and bigger boxes, with a little "clue" parcel in each layer. I've already got touchscreen gloves, chocolate smartphones and a phone holder for them to sit on, and am planning on getting a bar of galaxy chocolate each (as it's a Samsung Galaxy).

Any other ideas??

[Inkspellme]

phone covers to help protect against accidental damage? (prob worth checking out gadget insurance or whether they are included on household policy).
Spare charger for each of them?

[easylife73]

Thanks Inkspellme. Phone overs definitely a good idea, will look into that. Think they're covered by the household insurance or through our bank account. Can't stand the though of any more chargers though! I have a Samsung already, and my phone also fits the Hudl charger and the one for my Kobo, so assuming the two new ones are the same, we should have plenty to cover it!