What phone does your 11 or 12 year old have?

[Wainwriter]

Thinking about getting dc1 a phone for Christmas ready for secondary next year. I'm totally unsure what phone to get though. I've never had any Apple products, but I know they are popular and apparently have good parental control options. Is this true? Obviously we won't be buying the latest iPhone, but would an older model iPhone be a good idea? Or do we stick with android? If so, are there any apps that we can use for monitoring use etc?

Just wondering what everyone else does / did for their dc?

DC1 has recently started secondary school and we got a refurbished iPhone SE (older model - cost about £65). I went with iPhone as we all use them in our family and it's easy to set up parental controls from our phones, which was important to us.

DD got an iphone 8 two years ago for her 12th birthday, she had a hand-me-down 6 before.

Iphones work. best regarding control and. app sharing if you also have Apple products. If you have android I wouldn't go for iphones. A. colleague has Samsung for years and swears by them. I do think they are good value for money unless you are in an Apple household. I moved from android to Apple as I got fed up with not being able to. share apps and. functions without huge problems.

If you go for an older model (they don't need the last release one), then make sure. it's not too old. Some of the older models have issues updating. apps. so check the requirements for apps he most will need.

They all have iPhones at secondary school and if you get one that's too old then the apps can't update so they're pointless plus you'll need to replace the battery fairly soon after buying so factor that in.

My 11 year old ds got an iphone 8 last Christmas. My dh has an iPhone and they all have ipads so made sense to keep with apple so can easily do all the parental controls. I personally hate iPhones and will stick with Samsung!

I would start with your old phone to start with.
DS1 lost his 1st phone at a festival in August before starting school. His 2nd phone got soaked with leaking water bottle in September.
He got the hang of looking after them after that!
He now after a horrendously expensive phone, but he is 14. We always buy refurb rather than new, with a warranty.

I disagree re all having iPhones at secondary.
DS and friends are really into tech and prefer android.
Google pixel series but they are expensive.

I'm a bit slow in coming back to this thread, but thank you for all the replies.
Ds is weirdly very careful with his belongings, so I'm not too worried about him losing or damaging a phone (although I know it could happen).

Google family link is a good idea - I actually already use that for the laptop, but didn't realise I could use it for phones!

He's already been persuaded by the adverts/peers that iPhones are the best, but I think as we're not an Apple family it sounds that staying with android would be best. He does like photography, so I think as long as the phone has a decent camera, he'll be happy.

I think I'm finding it tricky because I've never cared about having the latest phone and spending a lot on them, but I don't want to be the mean parent that makes my child the odd one out. Also, because I'm not fussed with having the latest phone, it means I keep my phones until they are so old/slow/too little memory so I don't have an old phone I can hand down, like lots of parents do!

I wouldn't worry about that OP. It's not All iphones, at my daughters school it's a good mix.

The Huawei P30 pro has a great camera. Check out some reviews. It's the phone I currently have and I can't fault it.

Dd will be getting an iPhone for secondary school, and we will probably get a newer model so we don’t have to upgrade too soon (when Apple stop doing updates) But the deal with the dc is they get one phone for secondary school and if they lose it or break it then it’s replaced with an ancient Nokia non-smart phone as I have a drawer full of retired phones that I’ve kept as spares.