Alternatives to smartphones for kids
We want to stay in touch with our kids. But we don’t want them to be exposed to all the potential dangers of unrestricted smartphones in their pockets...
Known as simple phones, brick phones, dumb phones… whatever. These alternative phones for children offer lots of the good stuff (Snake, anyone?) without the wild west of the internet and social media. Great for parents wanting to disconnect too.
- A pared back internet-free phone that looks like a smartphone but only calls and texts (plus a few emojis 🙂)
- Uncrackable operating system that can’t access the internet and has no apps
- No camera
- Simple and intuitive to use
- Headphone jack for hands-free calling
Pinwheel
£239 for the Samsung Plus 4 model or £479 Google Pixel 8A
model. Plus £13.99 monthly for the Pinwheel Caregiver Portal
- Modern, reliable kid phones with built-in parent management
- Device is designed to grow with your child, to meet their experience and maturity level.
- You can create a contact safelist, monitor texts and calls and set schedules for when contacts and apps are available.
- No web browser or social media apps, but hundreds of other vetted apps available, which you can choose to add when your child is ready, including banking, Google Maps, Spotify and Citymapper.
- Inbuilt GPS locator
- A premium, minimal phone designed to be used as little as possible
- Black and white ‘paper’ screen like a kindle, which emits no blue light
- A customisable menu which includes like: an alarm, calculator, calendar, directions
- Music player
- Podcasts
- No internet, social media, email or internet
- Currently only compatible in the UK with Vodafone, Giff Gaff and Three
- Texts and phone calls
- Very long lasting battery
- Range of colours
- Bright, colourful display (non pixelated text)
- Built in FM radio, MP3 player and torch
- Snake (and Tetris but you need to pay for the full game)
- Single rear facing camera (no selfies!)
Balance Phone £299
- A smartish phone that is designed to be distraction free, giving modern connectivity without addictive apps or websites
- Provides a fully controlled environment that limits content and is tamper-proof – no requirement for parents to check or update settings
- Contains functional apps such as messaging, banking, music, maps etc
- Has an internet browser which blocks social media, pornography, games, gambling and streaming sites
- No option to monitor or track – aimed at fostering trust and healthy tech habits
- Like an iPod with in-built wireless earbuds which charge when not in use
- Inbuilt mp3 player with storage for thousands of songs
- Inbuilt speaker
- Wireless FM radio
- Great sound quality
- Great battery life
- No wifi or whatsapp
- Talk, text and wireless FM radio
- Amazing battery life
- Torch and snake game
IMPORTANT – When you get a SIM card for your child’s phone, make sure that it has NO DATA roaming, only calls and texts so that there is no chance that they can access the internet. Currently Asda are the only company that are offering this.
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