iPhones or iPod Touches for 9 y/o nieces?

[kieran]

My sister has tasked me with figuring out this crazy question.

She has 9 y/o twin girls. They're back and forth between her house, their father's house, my parents, and the other grandparents. This has made it very difficult for my sister to stay in touch with them without calling through another person, and they don't like to ask someone to use their phone if they want to talk to their mom or dad when they're not with them.

That being said, I initially though an iPod touch would be perfect for each of them. Everyone has an iPhone, so iMessage would work perfectly. FaceTime Audio could replace the phone call portion of it, since they're always somewhere with wi-fi. The problem with that is that they'd either have to be on speaker phone or plugged into headphone so the call portion to work.

I put this question on Reddit as well, and someone suggested a used iPhone 5, but I could even see going with an iPhone 5C and adding a line for $10/month for each of them, which would be even better than just being able to reach them on wifi. I could even just keep the SIM cards out and make them function as an iPod touch until they're ready for an actual phone.

I took a quick look on eBay for used iPhones, but didn't get too far into it.

What do you guys think?

[turbulentfurball]

Even an iPhone 4 would work with iMessage and FaceTime, and I'm sure you could get a couple of those cheaply on eBay. I think being able to use a phone without earphones would be a big advantage. I imagine 9 year olds would probably break or lose earphones quite quickly.

[kieran]

The only concern with going older hardware is the battery life. I don't want to grab something that has terrible battery.

Granted, they won't be using it as much as a "normal" person would, but I also don't want it to die within a few hours.

[zippy]

What kind of prices were you seeing on a used iPhone 5? I ask, because I have a couple of unlocked AT&T iPhone 5 16GB units in space gray that I keep not getting around to putting on Craigslist or the like. I think the batteries are OK, but not like new anymore. I was figuring I'd go ahead and put new batteries from iFixit in them before selling to avoid any unhappy buyers. I think they each have a new lightning cable, power brick and headphones as well.

[addison]

If you really want to be able to stay in touch she should just add lines to her plan. Wifi just seems too unreliable to me and isn't everywhere. Personally I think 9 is too young for a phone. I would have never do that for my kids but it's not my decision. As for devices no way would I go with iPhones. Kids are horribly destructive and have no idea what things cost. I would get them sub $100 phones. You would be surprised what you can get at that price point.

[kieran]

What kind of prices were you seeing on a used iPhone 5? I ask, because I have a couple of unlocked AT&T iPhone 5 16GB units in space gray that I keep not getting around to putting on Craigslist or the like. I think the batteries are OK, but not like new anymore. I was figuring I'd go ahead and put new batteries from iFixit in them before selling to avoid any unhappy buyers. I think they each have a new lightning cable, power brick and headphones as well.

The original plan was to go with refurb iPod Touches, which are going for $150 at Apple right now. I've seen prices for used iPhones in that range as well.

I'd be glad to take them off of your hands if we can make that work.

If you really want to be able to stay in touch she should just add lines to her plan. Wifi just seems too unreliable to me and isn't everywhere. Personally I think 9 is too young for a phone. I would have never do that for my kids but it's not my decision. As for devices no way would I go with iPhones. Kids are horribly destructive and have no idea what things cost. I would get them sub $100 phones. You would be surprised what you can get at that price point.

The original intent behind all of this is that the kids split their time between her house and their father's house, so she wants to be able to be in touch, as does he. The purpose of getting an iPhone or an iPod touch is also to partly replace their Kindle Fires, which have gotten long in the tooth pretty quickly.

[zippy]

I left you a PM to see if we can work something out.

[Mugge]

My cousin and her new husband have given each of her two kids (7 & 9 yo.) their old iPhone 5's and that seems to be working out just fine. It sort of the same scenario with a father and the kids needing to let their parents know where trey are.

I'd say it's the way to go.

Btw. The iPhones have been fitted with tough cases to alleviate the obvious abuse.

[turtle]

The perk of old iPhones it that they can call 911 should they need to. They also would include the GPS chip that Touches don't.

Or that can be a negative if your 3 year old happens to summon the cops to your place without letting you know they were doing that. :p Thankfully the officer was really nice as I stood there in my towel straight out of the shower at that point.