First smartphone 12 yr old advice please

[Asctreow]

Getting DS a first smarthpne for Christmas.
Is The Other Phone any good? Anyone bought one?

It looks like a lot of money to let a child walk around with. If you buy an expensive phone, do you have insurance and has that paid out ok, if needed?

We want to have the control over apps, no social media, ideally no internet searches, just calls, the apps and games he likes, location and maps. The EE plans don't seem to do this, but would they with Google Family Link?

We're very tech-ignorant and find all this overwhelming, want him to have a phone, so as not to stand out as the only child without one, but just apps we approve and basics.

We had a huge discussion about this pre my son’s 11th birthday. We opted for an older version iPhone and locking it down as much as possible. He can make calls/send texts and we can track him. He can use Spotify and has a few games. He has no internet access, no social media and has to ask to download any apps.

To him and his friends it looks the part and we can add other things as he gets older.

Thst sounds exactly what we want to do, only we don't know enough about how to lock a phone down. Is it easy, or is there anything like Google Family Link you used?

I bought our son an iPhone, mainly because we use apple products and it all ties in together. There are plenty of controls but to be honest I'm not that impressed with the limits iOS has regards monitoring. And third party offerings aren't any better really. Though thankfully most of his use is just YouTube and Clash Royale so I've not had to worry too much about checking texts etc which is the thing I worry about most (iOS lets you lock down / set limits on most things so have blocked all the social media stuff... but it doesn't allow for monitoring messages).

Obviously best thing whatever device you get is to talk with your child about the phone, acceptable use, and explain you'll limit the time / block social media / keep the phone during the night etc so they can learn what's okay...

I kinda wish I knew about The Other Phone before now - the CMF Phone 2 Pro it's based on is a good budget device and I've seen a lot of praise for it.