Ring in the school year with a new mobile phone

By Chris McGinn

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Attention parents! Looking for the perfect phone to give your kids? Today's choices are fun, flexible and functional -- and fit your idea of what's appropriate.

Among the possibilities are specialty phones with child-friendly features and customized plans with options parents want like GPS locators, no contracts and no surprises. According to a Nielsen Mobile report, more than one-third of tweens (those kids between the ages of 8 to 12) have a cell phone, with more than half of all tweens expected to have one by 2010.

When the cell phone market first began marketing phones for children, companies began creating specialty phones with streamlined features and bright colors like the LG Migo and Firefly.  While some of those are still on the market, the trend seems to be moving toward customized plans with mainstream phones.

The main wireless players -- AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint -- offer some version of parental control and a few new companies are getting into the mix.  However, the plans vary in terms of what they allow parents to limit so compare them to see what works best for your family.

Kajeet

One option that follows this new trend is kajeet. The service offers Sprint phones, such as the Sanyo Katana, Samsung m300, LGLX150, LGLX160 or Nokia 6165i, with plan choices such as pay-as-you-go rates as low as 10 cents per text or minute.

Kajeet also features a time manager, contact manager, and GPS phone locator service to give parents more control over their children’s phones. The time manager lets you decide when the phone is on or off and the contact manager lets you have power over who can call or be called from the phone.

Kajeet has no activation fee, no cancellation fee and no long-term contracts. The service lets parents help their children learn about bills with its “wallet” feature that lets users know how many minutes or text remain and you can choose who pays for what.

Besides the 10 cent pay-as-you-go rate, kajeet also offers other plans such as unlimited text for $19.99 or unlimited mobile AIM for $6.99.

Another feature is kajeet’s partnership with Nickelodeon for exclusive ringtones, wallpapers and content from their favorite shows such as Spongebob Squarepants.

Verizon Chaperone

Verizon scrapped its LG Migo phone in favor of a service that can be added to select phones. Chaperone enables parents to locate family members cell phones via Verizon Wireless phone or PC.

In addition, the Child Zone feature lets you define a specific area, or zone. When the child or other family member enters or leaves the defined zone with their cell phone, the parent automatically gets an alert to a phone or email with the time and location of the child’s phone.

To qualify for Chaperone, you must have a Chaperone Parent phone, which can locate phones and a Chaperone Child phone, which can be mapped and located. Many phones meet that criteria.  In addition, you must add the service to a Family Share Plan.

AT&T Smart Limits

AT&T Smart Limits doesn't offer the GPS location function, but it does allow parents to set some boundaries. For an additional $4.99 per phone, parents can limit the number of text and instant messages, set an allowance for downloadable purchases such as ringtones and games, assign times of day when the phone can be used and allow or block certain numbers.

Children receive a warning as they approach the text and download limits. Once the limit is reached, the action will be restricted until the next billing cycle.

Sprint Parental Control

Sprint offers Parental Control on its Sprint PCS Vision Phone SCP-2400 by Sanyo. It's a "grown-up" looking phone with built-in features that lets parents control contacts in the phone book, limit incoming and outgoing calls to numbers in the book only and restrict assess to various phone services. 

With the purchase of the accessories bundle, the phone comes with a gift card for a customizable "skin" and a backpack clip.

T-Mobile KidConnect

T-Mobile offers a no-overage plan for kids at $19.99 for 100 WHENEVER minutes and unlimited in-network calling. The plan doesn’t provide the parental control over who gets called and when, but it does offer a way to manage the monthly bill without surprises.

When the phone reaches its allotted number of WHENEVER minutes, it will no longer call out-of-network or text.  Minutes can be used for calling or text and additional minutes can be added.

If you want the simplified phone option rather than the grown-up handset with parental control, there are other choices available.

Firefly

One of the original phones on the market for kids, the Firefly has grown up. There are now two versions, the more basic GlowPhone and the full featured FlyPhone.

The FlyPhone ($99.99) is a multimedia phone with text, mp3, video, camera and gaming capabilities. In addition, it has an electroluminescent morphing keypad. It changes to match the features of the mode the phone is in—numbers for dialing, tuning wheel for MP3s, or gaming keys for game mode.

The GlowPhone ($49.99)  is similar to the original Firefly phone with 5-way navigation keys rather than a number pad. It also has one-button emergency calling, mom and dad quick access numbers, a flashlight and pre-programmable phone book for up to 50 numbers.

Pay-as-you-go plans range from 15 cent/minute talk and 10 cent/text to monthly rates, which are about five cents cheaper.

Leapfrog TicTalk

Children's toy maker Leapfrog enters the cell phone market with the TicTalk by Enfora, which blends connection with education in the form of pre-loaded learning games.

The $99 phone has a scrolling knob for accessing the phone directory with programmed numbers rather than a keypad. In addition, the handset is designed for durability.

The learning games are geared to kids in grades 1-6 and range from math and science to spelling and social studies.  Kids can earn "reward" minutes be completing games.

Parents can customize their children's phone usage with "anytime" and "reward" numbers.

Like other similar phones, the plans are prepaid and range from $25 to $100 for 100 to 400 minutes that are good for 90 days.

Check individual company Web sites for up-to-date pricing and options.