What to Consider Before Getting Your Child their First Phone

Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

{This is a collaborative post}

As a mom, there are a lot of things to worry about. One of the big concerns that many parents have is when to give their children their first phone. It can be a tough decision, and there are a lot of factors to consider. 

One of the first things you need to consider is your child's age. Most experts recommend that children be at least 12 years old before they get their first phone. This is because they need to be mature enough to handle the responsibility of having a phone and they should also be able to understand how to use it safely.

Another thing you need to think about is how your child will use their phone. If they are only going to use it for emergencies, then you may not need to get them a data plan. However, if they are going to use it for social media, gaming, or other activities that require data, then you will want to get them a well-priced data plan.

It would be best if you also thought about whether or not your child is ready for the responsibility of having a phone. This includes being able to follow the rules, such as not using their phone during class or at bedtime. If you think they are ready for this responsibility, then they are probably ready for a phone. And, speaking of responsibility, you also need to ensure they stay safe while spending time online. That said, have a look below at some valuable information that will help you ensure your child can enjoy some safe screen time once they get their first phone.

Infographic Design By Kidadl

Save Money on Your Mobile Phone Bill, with Airtime Rewards, for UK Networks

Image Credit: Airtime Rewards

About six months ago I received an email from EE introducing me to Airtime Rewards. It's an app you can download, add your credit and debit card details to and it sits in the background and logs your spend with the participating retailers. You then earn rewards for every eligible purchase and those rewards become money that you can use as money-off your mobile bill. I've received £30 off my mobile phone bill in the last few months and considering I only spend £10 a month, that has been three months of free service for me!

I love getting things for free and I'm sure you do too, and Airtime Rewards comes without any hassle or risks so I knew I had to spread the word and let others know about it too. So here is my lowdown -

Which Networks are Eligible?

The easy answer is all the big ones.  Three, EE, O2, Vodafone, giffgaff, Virgin Mobile, Tesco Mobile, ASDA Mobile, Lebara mobile, Lycamobile and Now PAYG. You can also use the reward for money off your pay monthly or pay-as-you-go contract.

How do I use Airtime Rewards?

1.  Download the app for Android or iOS. Complete the registration with your details including your mobile number, network and card details (you can register multiple cards and it takes around 24 hours to activate the card to start earning). Use my referral code Y7A844HB and we both make some money from it (see further down for more information). 

2.  Spend as normal and allow Airtime Rewards to do the work in the background. You can keep track of your spending if you want to and if anything is missed you can fill in the form within the app to log a missing transaction if it hasn't logged after 14 days. I don't bother, I literally sit back and wait for the cash to roll in!

3.   Keep an eye on what rewards you are earning. Then when you hit the minimum threshold for your network so can redeem the reward, or store them up for another day.

It really is super simple and feels like money for nothing. 

How to Get the Best Deal when Renewing your Mobile Phone Contract

Teenagers Texting Image by Akhenaton Images from Shutterstock

I've recently just renewed my mobile phone contract and I wanted an upgraded phone but not to have to pay any more per month. I thought this was going to be a very tall order and I'd have to pay quite a lot up-front for a new phone or accept that my monthly bill would be increasing. But no, with some shopping around I was able to secure a new phone that met my specification, the same monthly tariff and only a £50 upfront phone cost. Then considering I was upgrading 40 days before the end of my contract term I even managed to avoid paying off the buy-out charge as I stayed with the same provider and thus the £50 was around the same money. I was suitably impressed!

About a month before the end of your existing contract is a perfect time to look for new deals and to speak to the retention team about leaving your existing network supplier

Let me share with you the stages I went through to get my great value new phone deal -

1.  Choose which Phone you want next
I've been an iPhone user since 2012 and generally I love my phone. I find iOS very easy to use and intuitive and importantly all my music is stored in iTunes and this has kept me tied in over the last 6 years. Personally I've never had the newest iPhone on the market as I can't bear to part with so much money and I've found that by the two year mark each of my iPhones are pretty much done-in and are ready for the scrap heap. At two years my iPhone 4 totally refused to start-up, my 5C camera stopped working and now my SE also has a poor and slow camera!

With this in mind I decided I ought to bite the bullet and give an Android phone a go and I assumed I'd move to Samsung as it is a name I know and trust and my girls had Samsung tablets that worked well but when I started to speak to people everyone kept telling me to try Huawei. The same kind of specs as iPhone and Samsung flagship models but at much lower prices.

Keeping your Kids Mobile Safe at School

Children with mobile phones image from Shutterstock

It was only a couple of years ago I found myself saying to my husband, but surely JJ doesn't need a mobile now he is at Secondary school? We never had one, so why should he? But then my husband patiently reminded me that thirty years ago when we were at school there was a coin operated phone box on practically every street corner and we both lived within walking distance of our schools. Now our son travels for nearly an hour on the bus and in all that time doesn't pass even one phone box!

Oh yes things really have changed and I am convinced that for the most part the changes really are a good thing but of course there are challenges too and we'll explore some of those now.

It's against School Policy
This is a tough one as generally I always want to encourage our children to adhere to the school rules but actually I think school are being a bit short-sighted on this one. Without a mobile, how is my son to tell me if he misses the bus or if it breaks down, when there are no longer any call boxes and no public transport to where we live?

Practicality dictates for us that JJ (age 14) takes his phone to school with him and during the school day it stays on mute at the bottom of his bag. From what he tells me it is exactly what nearly every other child in the school does too, so it seems comical that the school keep reinforcing in their newsletter that phones must not be bought into school and if a child does they are breaking the school rules and any loss or damage will not be dealt with by the school. I suppose that is one way of them ensuring they don't have lots of parents banging on their door moaning about theft or breakage.

Review of the LG G3 Phone

Over the last month or so I have been using the LG G3 phone which only launched a couple of months ago and is hailed as being one of the most impressively speced handsets on the market. It features a near bezel-free design, a 5.5-inch Quad HD display with a Snapdragon quad-core processor, 2GB of ram and a 13-mega pixel rear-mounted camera.

So what did I a devoted iPhone user and novice phone reviewer think? Well, in a nutshell I was far more impressed with it than I thought I might be. Let me tell you about it -

The screen resolution is fantastic
It is an absolute joy to watch a video or look at pictures on this phone. The quad HD screen really does what it is supposed to and you can see the difference from my iPhone 5C. The resolution on this screen is 538 ppi, which is what is commonly used to print high-end glossy art books

One touch photography
The 13mp camera is so easy to use, you have the option of no buttons and you can have the full 5.5" screen to look at and then tap with your finger to focus and shoot. Or alternatively tap the 3 dots and the controls appear on screen. There are a few nice options like magic focus, voice activated photo taking or selfies taken when the photo recognises your hand in front of the screen, so you don't have to worry about pressing the button and looking good! Also the OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) function reduces blur and shaking, with the laser measuring the distance to the object instantly to create clear and exquisite pictures. I also love how easy it is to share pictures straight from the camera roll, no need to go into Instagram or Google + (or any other social media site) you can share directly with just a few tiny actions.

Take a look at a couple of the pictures I took on the phone (with no enhancement) -

and just so you can see the quality of the images taken with the front facing camera, here is a selfie -

The phone looks really good
Available in three different metallic colorways, the LG G3 looks the business. One side is completely glossy screen the the other is the metallic finish. Sadly the metallic finish is on polycarbonate and whilst this makes the phone light and I believe has connectivity benefits too, it just feels a bit light and cheap to me. I also got a couple of small scratches quite easily.

Another benefit is that the back is really easy to get off the phone and this means you can insert a Micro SD card to increase memory capacity (up to 128GB) and change the battery if necessary.

It is a very big phone though, with a 5.5" screen it is practically a small tablet and I suppose it just comes down to personal preference. For watching videos and viewing images and web pages it makes things a lot easier but for storing the phone in a pocket or being really portable it is not so good.

Easy to use interface
Considering I've never used an LG phone before I was surprised how intuitive I found the phone to use, the controls at the bottom of the screen are pretty much the same as on my girls Samsung Tab 2 tablets. It was really easy to set up using the wizard which came up first time I plugged it in to charge and arranging the home screen was just like using my iPhone.

It all looks very ascetically pleasing with muted colours and I could add my own photos as wallpaper and screen save as you would expect.

The on/off switch and volume controls are on the back which at first I did not like but once I read I could tap the screen twice to turn it on and tap the status bar twice to make it go to sleep I was happy.

Intuitive keyboard
I was surprised how much of a difference it made to me having letters and numbers on one page of the keyboard, rather than having to toggle between the two. Something so simple but so helpful. It is also good that the keyboard gets to know you and the way you type, so it starts to predict your common typing errors and will start to allow for these. Auto-complete and auto-correct are easy and quick as well.

Not too fussy
By this I mean the phone did not come pre-installed with tons of apps that I don't want and can't delete. I love the fact I can really customise this phone to have just what I want on it. I can delete the pre-installed apps if I so desire and the Google play store is easy to use and download from. It would be better if there was some kind of password attached to downloads though.

Good enough battery life
The LG G3 has a 3,000mAh cell battery which can handle the strain the high resolution screen and fast processor puts on it. Using it for the whole day for social media, web browsing, texting and note taking meant the battery lasted me about a working day (8 hours) and then it needed a full charge again.

Decent sound quality
The 1 watt speaker with boast amp is good enough for a phone, it made a change to not need to add bluetooth speakers for decent quality sound.

Fast working and plenty of space
You could feel the quality of the processor on this phone as internet browsing is so fast and the phone comes with 16GB of memory as standard and you can add in a Micro SD card to take that up to 128GB if you need to.

Smart Notice
Can you believe that this phone tries to pre-empt what you might need, based on previous behaviour and interactions with the phone? It might ask you if you want to call someone back whose call you missed or if you want to switch wi-fi on. It is very clever and a little unnerving too! I did smile when it reminded me to take my umbrella out with me and then of course I didn't and got rained on!

Knock code
When you set up your LG G3 you are encouraged to set a knock code, which will wake the phone up and also act as a pass code to give you access to use it. You basically have a 4 quadrant grid and need to tap in 4 places to break the code and I like the idea of this but I kept forgetting the knock code so I had to turn it off and put a traditional number password on, I suppose that is because it is what I am used to using.

Conclusion
In all the LG G3 is a really great phone. If you like a big high-resolution screen, effective and easy to use point and click camera and lightweight phone then this could be for you. A new LG G3 is currently retailing for £357 on Amazon.

As mentioned at the beginning I really am a novice at this tech thing and can only give a perspective on the parts of the phone that I have experienced. If you want to read some more in-depth reviews of the LG G3 then check out Tech Radar or Know Your Mobile.

Disclosure: I received the LG G3 handset free of charge for the purpose of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.

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