I'm jealous of my kid's cellphone, and I don't even like cellphones. Today Josie got a phone from Kajeet, a new service for kids. (FULL DISCLOSURE: You may have seen Kajeet advertise here, and we got the phone and $20 of service to review for free.)
So far, we like it, and Josie of course is tickled to death to have her own phone even though she doesn't go anywhere without me. She's been using it as a camera primarily, snapping pictures of her sister and the cats.
Kajeet is pay as you go. It's 10 cents/minute for all domestic calls, 5 cents per text message, 25 cents per picture message--and no roaming charges. There's a 35 cents a day service fee as well. Kids can download their own ringtones, wallpapers and games; some are free and some cost extra. Kids can also get "feeds" into their phones--weather, horoscopes, joke of the day, etc.
The LG 225 phone we were sent has phone, text, web, camera, calendar, alarm, notepad, calculator, voice mail, email and instant messaging. (Not everything comes free with the phone; instant messaging, for instance, is an extra $6.99/mo.
The Kajeet website is set up so that parents have one view of it and kids have another. The kids can see all the stuff they can do--the games, feeds, ringtones etc--and how much money they have in their accounts. The parents control how much money is in the kid's account ("wallet") to spend on talking, texts and so on. If the kid runs out of money, the kid runs out of cellphone fun, period, until the parent fills up his wallet again.
Parents can block any phone numbers from calling in to the phone other than ones specifically programmed into the phone. Parents can also stop a child from making calls or texts in certain time periods. For schoolkids, during class is one option. Being homeschoolers, we made it so Jo can't call her friends after 8 pm.
Everything is very kid-oriented. When you call into customer service you get the little brother of the old Dell guy ("Dude, yer gettin' a Dell!), who greets you with "What's up, bro!" and proceeds to tell you all your menu options. When you choose one he says "Cool, I'll hook you up!" oy. I'll say this: I was on hold less than a minute, and the customer service rep had me up and running very quickly.
Then I call in to a different number to activate the minutes card we were given, and I get Hillary Duff's younger second cousin, who chirps at me in burbling, peppy, upbeat tones about my phone service. Weirdest phone trees I've ever heard, but when you're marketing to the kids I suppose that's what works. Everything worked fine, wasn't confusing. It was just weird to be addressed as "bro," I guess.
How's the phone service itself? We don't know yet. Our house is in a Bermuda Triangle for cellphones--only one of many, many reasons why we haven't moved all our phone service onto cell like so many of our friends. But so far, with the features Kajeet has, if we really needed Jo to have a cellphone I'd be entirely comfortable having this plan. No ugly surprise $200 cell phone bills, no calls from people we don't want talking to her, no calls after 8 pm to kids who have to get up early the next morning, unlike her. I like it.
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