Tweens/ 1st Mobile Phone Advice technology apps

[louloubooboo1906]

Hi… looking for advice please? I need to get my daughter a first mobile phone her school is an hour away so she will want to listen to music/ podcasts. I have 4 children who will be getting to secondary age so soon will all need phones. Can anyone recommend a reliable but easy to use phone that I can buy and use a pay as go sim card as I can’t have contacts for all children moving forward or insurance etc. And does anyone know what would be the best app for music and podcasts so that we could have a family plan that they can all use and I can manage but they need to be able to listen without using data or wifi because it would use too much as the school journeys are so long. I’m not really technically advanced so all help would be brilliant. Thank you in advance.

get reconditioned iPhones from CEX and get them on to Smarty. We pay £12 for 200GB or something like that.

we are Amazon so pay a stupid
amount for Amazon, Amazon music, Amazon Video and Amazon prime. You can not pay a subscription for music but you don’t get access to everything and you get ads. Depends how much they are into their music I guess. 200MB is massive though if they're
not gaming and they can download before leaving WiFi.

what do you mean contacts for all children? My kids’ phones are insured in my name.

Spotify premium works offline and have a family plan but you need to sort the downloading and playlists using the internet.

Another though - an hour away - are you rural? Is there decent network the whole way?

On podcast apps you can download episodes while on home WiFi and then listen offline without data. In the app settings you should be able to turn off streaming (or it may default to off).

@boulevardofbrokendreamss I think OP meant "contracts".

@boulevardofbrokendreamss thank you…. I mean a monthly contract for each child.

I loathe Apple but agree reconditioned or second hand is good for younger dc. If they show that they're taking good care of their phones there can always be an upgrade for birthday/Christmas but if not at least you won't lament the loss of a 500 bucks phone.

Not sure I'd pay for subscription to stuff, isn't spotify free to use ? Though I'd 100% support installing the kindle app or equivalent (obviously with parental controls so she can't just buy anything without permission). Also maybe audible ? It has lots of free podcasts, aside from the one credit a month.