Mobile phone options for 11 year old

[Big Rig]

Mrs Big Rig has shared custody of her children. Need to get the youngest a phone (that will stay at home and not go to school) just so she can keep in touch with him when he's not with her, this is instead of having to ring his sister or dad and ask to pass the phone over.

2 options I've though of, a cheap nokia with a Lebara or similar contract with a spending cap, this will mean he'll only be able to call and text, or, get a cheap iphone (8 etc) and just use it in wifi mode with an itunes account and put whatsapp on etc for him (which I know he'd prefer over the Nokia idea).

Question is can I do option 2, is it possible just to use an iPhone over wifi with no cellular contract?

[Shuff4]

Mine have older iPhones, on 3 sim only contracts which are around £7p/m

Makes it slightly easier being iPhones as were all on iPhones then, plus the addition of the tracking / mapping facility for when they go out.

[CheesecakeRunner]

Big Rig said:

Question is can I do option 2, is it possible just to use an iPhone over wifi with no cellular contract?

Yes, that’s possible, I use one like that as a bike computer for an indoor bike.

But WhatsApp needs a phone number to sign up. Don’t know if it’ll work purely on Wi-Fi afterwards though. FaceTime would work though.

Personally, I’d go for the simple Nokia with texts and calls. Removes any need for parental controls etc and has no dependency on wifi.

[Whataguy]

The iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone part & available cheaply.

I needed a backup phone and bought a Nokia for around £120 from Argos, it's a bit slow but runs all the software. With a cheap pay as you go sim, that's another option.

Also the iPhone SE Mk1 and 2 are pretty cheap. I even managed to get a Mk2 with a new battery for £150.

[JQ]

Shuff4 said:

Mine have older iPhones, on 3 sim only contracts which are around £7p/m

Makes it slightly easier being iPhones as were all on iPhones then, plus the addition of the tracking / mapping facility for when they go out.

This. My kids have refurbished iPhones from Music Magpie / Giff Gaff / Back Market etc - £200 gets them a decent quality phone and as me and mum have iPhones, restricting their use and tracking is really simple. I can control what apps they download and how much screentime they have. I then have a £9 pcm sim only contract with Tesco, which allows me to restrict what sites they visit.

[grumbas]

We bought ours the cheapest Xiaomi offering, circa £60. 2 years later and much use it's still going strong.

Various options for a data sim, ID mobile usually have something cheap on offer, but they piggyback 3 so signal can vary. Voxi often have an offer at £8/month too, and that's on Vodafone. Keep an eye on hot uk deals.

I think most networks now allow you to set a spending cap.