Are you ready to explore mobile phone service options for your kids?
Children are getting phones at younger and younger ages because parents understand the benefits of getting mobile service for them. Why are parents moving toward evaluating mobile phone service options for their kids? Safety and security are always at the top of the list. Parents and children both need to know that they can get in touch when they need to.
How Twigby Can Help
At Twigby, our mobile service is designed to be flexible by allowing you to tightly manage your child’s or tween’s use. By offering ways to keep the cost low, while retaining control of both what they use and how they use it, Twigby takes care of the biggest concerns. A popular feature used by parents is to restrict kids to only use Wi-Fi by choosing the No Data plan option to avoid using any cellular or mobile data. It’s a natural limit!
You Can Eliminate Cellular Data Charges
Normally, kids don’t use many minutes unless they call Mom or Dad often (which is unlikely unless, of course, they want something). Texting is more popular. According to Mashable, the average teenager sends thousands of texts each month!
However, data usage is a different story. Unlike calling and texting, data can be consumed quickly, or worse, unintentionally! Kids are kids and don’t always make the smartest choices, so falling asleep while watching a YouTube video on a repeat loop is not out of the question. If that happens, then data charges could pile up.
With Twigby mobile service, you can choose a talk and text plan for as low as $9 per month. They can still use WiFi, which is free and is available at most of the places they visit, but they’re prevented from running up a large and unexpected bill for data usage. You can also add or delete a data package at any time on a month-by-month basis, never having to wait on a long contract before changing data options. Plus, with free Overage Protection, we guard your wallet from hefty overages. Flexibility is a huge advantage when considering the kind of mobile service you should invest in for your kids’ first phone experience.
Phone Choices – Easier Than You May Think
We know what kids want, but it may not always align with the budget of their parents. There are lots of cool phones to choose from that kids will get excited about, but for a first phone, price and usability are top priorities for parents.
Phone Features Important to Children:
- Storage – Because apps take up space and tend to get larger over time, it can quickly hamper performance on a child’s phone if there is too little storage left for other uses. 4GB is a floor requirement, but 8 to 16 GB is much better. This is important because apps will quickly add up on their phone. It’s also a good idea to be able to expand using an SD card, which is great for storing all those pictures.
- Camera quality– Kids and teens love to take pictures. The amount of megapixels governs the quality of their pictures. The more megapixels, however, the more expensive the phone. Does your child really need professional quality photos to shoot a series of funny faces? Probably not.
- Screen Size – Because we all know that bigger is always better. No, seriously, screens now average 4.5 inches. This is a good starting point for a smartphone’s screen size.
- Front Camera – Like it or not, selfies are a way of life now. This is also the camera used with video calling.
Phone Purchase Considerations:
- Watch how much you spend on a first phone. Kids will try to talk you into buying them the newest flagship smartphone, which normally requires either a two-year contract at one of the major carriers or a full sell-off of your stock portfolio in order to finance the purchase.
- We also recommend looking at a certified pre-owned phone, since they can have the same quality and performance as a new phone.
Evaluating mobile service options for your kids and deciding on these options comes with tradeoffs. Easing into it can make it more rewarding for the kids and much less stressful for you! We want to make it easy to get started with cellphone service for your kids, while being the most affordable and simplest phone service to maintain.
