First phone for 10 year old?

[Wolfie11]

Sorry, I’m being that person who is posting for traffic!

DS would like a phone for his 10th birthday. He’s a great kid and never asks for anything, plus he isn’t the type to get obsessed with it and I’m not the type of parent to allow him to so I’m quite happy to oblige.

I just have no idea what kind to get! I’ve always had iPhones on contract but I don’t think I want to get a contract phone for a 10 year old and they are so expensive to buy new. The cheapest I can find is the iPhone SE at £400 which seems very steep for a first phone. Does anyone have any recommendations? It would be mainly used for WhatsApp, playing games and listening to music. I’d like one that had good parental controls on it. Thanks in advance.

Don't worry about the parental controls side- just download google family link onto whichever one you get.

I got my daughter a very basic smartphone at first but once she got into the games her friends played it wasn't really good enough. Samsung phones tend to be cheaper than iPhones but I'm not an expert on them

DS1 had his 11th birthday in first lockdown.
We ended up putting a new sim in an old handset of ours, and telling him it would be upgraded when shops opened (DH and I disagreed about spec for new phone so it was a cop out!).
Having seen the prices of new handsets, he asked to keep the second hand one (Samsung).
Do you have to return contract phones (weve always bought outright)? If not, do you have a handset lying round?

Whilst android is generally cheaper than apple, if the rest of the house has apple, it's probably easier to stick with that brand - trying to resolve issues on my parents iPhones is hard over vidoecall, because the interface is slightly different.

I've got a Motorola g30 because the reviews were really good. They're about £150 in Argos. Does everything a ten year old would want (I suspect, I don't know many)

Oh and you can track him (if you were so inclined) via Google maps as long as you both have it downloaded