Phone for a 10 year old?

[Wil]

My son's a Type 1 diabetic and is going up to the 'big' school in September so I'd like to get him a mobile that I can easily contact him on (and vice versa). It'll be PAYG and I'd like to strike that balance between something that's relatively cool but not ridiculously expensive/easily breakable.

Doesn't have to be a smartphone.

I'm not really up on phones (I'm still on a iphone 3GS) so any recommendations would be good. He's a good boy and careful with his stuff if that makes a difference.

[J0e Musashi]

A BlackBerry of some kind would probably be best I think. ALL the kids have them, so it won't stand out as something they want to steal from him. You can get good PAYG deals from supermarkets:

http://shop.tescomobile.com/mobile-phones/pay-as-you-go/blackberry/curve+9360?deal=5099

[briareos_kerensky]

BlackBerries are popular with kids? Really? I've always thought that BBs were thought for enterprises and nowadays ignored for other platforms even by them.

[Duncan James Waugh]

The BlackBerry install base is actually still strong, with an active install base of 79 million prior to the launch of BB10 at the start of this year. That's only a drop of 1 million over the previous two years despite the delays and the fact that they had no real product launches in 2012. Joe's right a lot of teenagers use BlackBerry for the messaging service. Since the launch of the Z10 and Q10, which came out the gate to strong sales, analysts generally predict a growth of several million over the first quarter of this year.

If you do go for a BlackBerry the Q5 has just come out to some pretty solid reviews and is the budget end of the new BB10 lineup.

[J0e Musashi]

It's the BBM service that they all go for. I offered my boy an iPhone, but he said he didn't want to be left out, so we opted for the BB 9360.

[speedlolita]

Yeah my 12 year old sister has a blackberry. BBM is free I assume?

[VR46]

BBM (with internet data included) used to be a fiver a month back in the day when I had to pay for my daughters phone and bits.

Wil, Argos sell a load of Blackberry look-a-like phones for around ?50, don't know what they're like, just see them there when waiting to collect something.

[kryss]

Noka 3310 ftw of course.

[fishbowlhead]

BBM will be rolling out to iOS and android this year, no time scale but it will be happening.