Total Apple novice. IPhone for tween. Is iPhone7 ok?

[megletthesecond]

DD wants an iPhone for secondary school in Sept. She can afford a reconditioned iPhone from Giffgaff.

I know nothing about Apple as I've only had sumsung.
Is the iPhone 7 a decent phone to keep her going for a while? I've read about ios operating systems and it seems that the older ones are defunct. So an older iPhone presumably won't be able to use WhatsApp?

Will she need an apple account? I won't do anything that needs to be linked to a bank account.

Did I imagine it or do Apple phones not hold memory cards? All my photos are on this phones memory card and backed up in the hard drive every so often.

Thanks for reading.

I have an iPhone 7. It’s been well looked after and it works fine. I’ve had it from new. I can use WhatsApp no problem.
You will need an Apple account but you don’t have to link a card to the account.
The phone doesn’t take memory cards so you’ll need to regularly back up photos etc to your cloud account. You can buy extra cloud storage if you want or you can just put things you want to keep onto your computer.
It will keep her going for a while, but the camera and screen quality are certainly outdated. Battery life won’t be as good as newer models, I use my phone all day at the moment (WhatsApp emails, social media, music, I’m a heavy phone user) and have to put it on charge at about 3pm.

Yes I have a 7 and it is on great condition and works well. All apps run on it no problem. I like it as the newer models are all too big for me!

There is also the option of the new iPhone SE

Thanks all. That's really helpful.

Recent review of the iPhone 7 in 2020

www.google.com/amp/s/www.slashgear.com/honestly-the-free-iphone-7-is-still-pretty-great-04612121/amp/