XMas Present for my 17 yo son is going to be a new Phone. I am massively confused by the range of options available and am keen on some suggestions.
My son's personal choice would be either a nerw iPhone 6 or the new Sony phone that has some kind of gimmicky sync feature with a PS4.
My considerations are a litle more practical however. he has totalled 3 phones and an iPad in the last 3 years, the latest victim being his previous Nexus 4 which wont even turn on now after another apparently victimless freak accident (they seem to happen quite frequently to him, the freak accidents), the latest involving a random other person and a flight of stairs, apparently the phone inexplicably came out of his pocket and beat both of the boys to the bottom! Go figure.
Not really keen to spend $1K or more on a phone only to have to agonize over the latest excuse by around Feb!
Practical considerations for me are:
his plan is on Amaysim so works on the Optus 3G network I think. 4G probably not important. I pay for the data and him being annoyed with slow roaming data is not a problem for me given he has been disallowed from using it.
He is doing year 12 next year and year 11 results have suffered badly from his video game addiction. Although he would probably place gaming ability and graphics at the top of his feature list, it is at the bottom of mine. He probably needs an OK screen and OK graphics but I dont want to pay more to enhance the attraction of more gaming for him.
He generally doesnt seem to take a lot of photos but he does text/message a lot.
He doesnt really make a lot of calls
He is probably looking for something to allow him to fit in more gaming hours in the day as well as an additional status symbol in the playground. I am looking for something durable that I can call him on to find out if I should be coming to pick him up from Karate training etc.
If he wants a more cutting edge phone to impress folks with he can get another part time job and use his own money. That said it is a XMas present and I dont want to give him something laughable like a $50 barely workable phone. I am thinking budget up to and around $350. Something with decent battery life but durable would be good. Dont want/need dual sim.
Sorry for the long post, any recommendations appreciated.
Can you tell us your budget? If Budget isn't an issue than just get him what he wants. If budget is an issue, the OnePlusOne phones offer the best value (obviously subject to personal preference). My recommendation is tell him your budget and let him come up with the rest or find something within your budget. Teenagers are never going to be happy with something you choose for them, regardless of your best intentions and advice from us OzB experts ….