Brickphones for Y7 kids: any cons? Anyone regretted it?

[ParentOfOne]

We are debating whether our child, who has just started Y7, should get a brickphone.

The commute to school is straightforward enough - she doesn't really need it for that.

She's asking for it to remain in touch with her friends, to organise when/where to meet, and especially to stay in touch with her friends who are at different schools.

Something like a Nokia 105 (I understand it needs to be the 4G version) has no camera, no internet, no whatsapp, no browser, no apps, so we don't think it can be addictive nor disruptive in any way

Is there any specific downside we are not thinking of?
Has any of you got a brickphone for their child, then regretted it?

The main downside I can think of is indirect, if the sooner she gets a brickphone, the more and the sonner she'll demand a smartphone.

Thoughts?

Her school is one of those where phones can be kept in bags as long as they are switched off. Other schools do not even allow that and ban phones completely.

PS I didn't mean downside vs smartphones. I get it that brickphknes cannot do Whatsapp, let alone group whatsapp chats, don't have public transport apps, etc.

I was thinking of downsides of brickphones vs no phone at all

Our dd has had a brick phone since start of y6. Is now y8. She lets us know where she is and can communicate with friends but no SM or access to WA, which is great. I would t want to be involved in all her plans through the summer. This gives her the independence to arrange meeting up with friends etc. But we remove phone from 8.30pm.

She does sometimes play snake on there but it’s nowhere near the distraction a smartphone would be. She still reads and crafts and rollerblades in the park. We’re very happy with it and no plans to move to a smartphone before age 16. The only downside has been that she has no map or travel app access, which can be tricky for her as she navigates the outside world a bit more.

We got DD a basic Nokia phone when she started walking to and from school in Year 6. She used it to text that she was on the way home, or had gone to the park after school, and occasionally to text friends. Honestly it was more for my reassurance than for her! There were no issues with it. It has a camera (not great quality) and a couple of games including Snake - very old school! No WhatsApp so no group chats, bullying etc.

Her primary school was a smartphone free school so most of the class had similar phones, meaning there was no peer pressure about having smartphones or social media. She starts Year 7 tomorrow, and the school doesn’t allow phones in school, so she’ll just have it for the journey (which is longer than the journey to primary school). The main benefit is that she can contact us if there’s any issues, and can contact her friends. I’m interested to find out if most of the Year 7s have brick phones or smartphones as there seems to be a shift away from smartphones for younger teens and preteens.

We got eldest DD a brick phone in year 7. I quickly realised that there was no way to control the contacts being added and the SMS/calls.

We swapped it for a android smart phone and have everything locked down via Family Link. No WhatsApp, Internet (and no data) or any apps apart from Google messages. I control what contacts she can add. To all intents and purposes, it's a brick!

@SorrelForbes Interesting, I hadn't thought of that. May I ask if anything specific had happened, or if you were just concerned about the possibility?

can I ask which phone you purchased? TIA

We bought a Samsung A12 on Amazon and a £4 text/call sim from Asda mobile.

Nothing specific. I wanted to be sure about who she was texting/calling. There were a few incidents at school with chat groups/WA and O wanted to keep her well away!

We got one for our year 5 when she needed to travel home from school alone. She couldn't use it and shoved it in a drawer for 18 months but the summer before year 7 she learnt to text and texts her friends most days but only for 15 minutes max so it's not as addictive as a smartphone. It has a camera but it's very pixilated. She uses my smartphone supervised for some apps that she doesn't want to use the big computer for like Duolingo as she prefer the touchscreen for the writing characters. We are glad she has it as she can keep in touch with primary school friends.