Teen Smartphone

[LemurintheSun]

We've promised my 15 yr DS a smartphone for his birthday in a month or two. Neither of us have one ourselves (gosh, we're behind, though that too will probably come soon). What should we be thinking about, in terms of deals, cost, insurance etc? What did you get for your similar-aged still-a-bit-careless & could-be-a-target-for-theft DCs; and why?

I'm amazed your ds has got to 15 without asking for one!

Most teens seem to have iphones but have a look at the moto g (think it's only on tesco). You could do payg but will probably get better value for money on a contract.

it bought a refurbished Phone 4s for £60 but dh and I both love our iPhones so it was the only way to go

I am amazed he has reached such a venerable age without a smartphone!

My ds is 11 and has the Moto G, it's a great little phone, good battery life (my main concern) and not too expensive. However, there is a big difference between 11 and 15 in terms of acceptability of tech. My guess is he will want an iPhone because 'everyone' has one and if they are using Apple-only features like iMessage and Facetime he may be a bit left out (until they learn there are perfectly acceptable equivalents that aren't specific to Apple ... a crusade I have been on for some time among ds' friends).

DS is a computer/X-box gamer, so there's a lot of Skyping. He has sometimes asked for a Smartphone, but it's never seemed a crucial requirement. He has an old-style dumb phone, but barely uses it (embarrasment, probably).

I think if they have got to 15 without one they aren't too image conscious - so you can avoid the inflated price samsungs and iphones.
(I hate samsung - I got a phone from them on their Bada operating system -within a couple of months they moved completely onto Android -stopped supporting Bada, no apps available....phone was obselete within a year... )

I've just bought a Wiley Fox Swift - high spec for the money (£120ish), android based Cyanogen OS which is customisable, dual sim (useful for holidays etc) expandable memory, unlocked as standard - and they are a British company.
Before DD1 (15) and I both had chinese ZTEs and they were fine - cost around the £70 mark. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on one for DD as she lost her old basic smart phone countless times - she hasn't lost one since but has broken the screens, earphone jacks etc. She ended up with my old ZTE and I was using my 'spare' holiday phone -a basic smart phone (Alcatel pixi -about £30) - I found it frustratingly slow...
She now has that one (broken her ZTE) - If she can look after it for a couple of months -no more broken screens etc - I will get her a Wiley fox like mine...
She and I are with giffgaff- I have low usage and am on PAYG (unless I am going away or something when I will use it more when I buy a £5 goody bag for a month) - for £15 a month goody bag she gets 4GB data, lots of calls and unlimited texts.
Best of all she can't go over the limit and run up a big bill (was stung by Virgin on a monthly rolling contract - she went over her data allowance and I got a bill for £50 and her phone was completely blocked -even though she had lots of texts/calls in her allowance left. The only way to allow her to use it for calls/texts was to pay the £50 or increase the limit... and £50 was the lowest cut off you could set...)
DP has a contract with Tescos for an alcatel Pop Star or something - £7.50 a month for 500mb data which seems fine - he mainly uses it for watching videos online. I got a temporary contract with Tescos for a sim for holiday use (they had no roaming charges) and they let me set an overspend limit of £2 or something - also I know I have friends with DCs on tesco network...and they recommend it.