Back to School Bash - Kajeet Phones Review and Giveaway

12:57 AM

Let's face it, our children are growing up in the iGeneration, where everything is virtual and lead by technology. It is no surprise that children are asking for cell phones starting at a very young age. Usually, I would not hop on this train and would feel that my ten year-old is too young for a phone, but he has been begging for the past year since most his friends at school already have them. When I heard about the parental features that are in place on Kajeet phones for kids, I changed my mind.

{In Their Words}

"We're All About Kids

In A Nutshell: We Believe Kids Are Smart

Kajeet may be based in Bethesda, Maryland, but kids are the center of our universe. That's why we made the only pay-as-you-go cell phone service that puts kids first.

Our story began with three dads figuring out how technology, kids and parents work best ("kajeet" is an anagram of the first letters of the names of the company's founders' children). Thinking of our own kids, we designed a service to provide them with everything they need to safely explore the exciting new world of mobile tech.

We believe kids are smart. At kajeet our entire philosophy springs from this simple core idea. We want kids to be agile with technology. We want kids to have fun. We want them to be empowered and safe, and we want to help them respond with confidence to what's happening in their world."

{My Take}

When I was offered a phone for review from Kajeet in my Back to School bash, my instincts said no, but then I clicked into super sly mommy mode and thought that at the very least this would be a great incentive tool and opportunity to start teaching my less than responsible tween a few life lessons.

Kajeet is a pay as you go cell phone service geared entirely toward children and there are no contracts, no month to month obligations and no hidden activation or termination fees. They also include a slew of parental controls and features at absolutely no extra cost, such as limiting who they can text or call, what time of day they can use the phone, what features they can use on the phone and how much they can spend in any given month. Plus, for a fee of $9.95 per month, you can also get a GPS tracking feature that allows you as the parent to know where the phone and your child are at any given moment.

My first though was, what is the catch and truthfully, there isn't one. Cell phone plans are very reasonably priced and so are the phones. Prices start at $24.99 for a regular phone and only $29.99 for a camera phone. Plans can be purchased for as low as $4.99 and are customizable to best fit your child's personal text and talk usage. For instance, you can purchase any Kajeet phone and get a plan with 60 minutes of talk time and unlimited texting for only $14.99 per month if your child does mostly texting. For $19.99 you can get a plan with 500 talk minutes and 100 texts if they do a little bit of both. There are many more plan options available, or you can choose to go without a plan and pay on a per minute or text basis.

Kajeet operates on a "wallet" system. There is a parent and child wallet and this is where the responsibility lesson comes in. You can teach your child the value of a dollar by only allowing them to spend what they have. They will have to budget the money in their wallet and once it is gone, they will get an error message when they try to use the phone. No extra charges, just an error message. You can use your parent wallet to transfer money to them if you wish.

We tested out a red Samsung camera phone and my son is quite smitten with it. In fact, I have found it to be great encouragement to get him to stay on the straight and narrow. Although he is only able to access my number and my mom's for now, he seems to be happy with that and the boy who lost his DS now knows exactly where the cell phone is at all times. I enjoy having the phone around just to know that it is there in case of an emergency, since I myself do not carry one.

If you have been considering the purchase of a cell phone for your child, I am not sure I would recommend any other service except Kajeet. I have never seen a company go out of their way to make sure that parents have the control. You basically control ever number, feature and function of this phone 24/7. Plus, Kajeet operates on the Nationwide Sprint Network so your child will have service virtually anywhere. With all of the horror stories out there today, why would you want it any other way?

{Buy It}

You can purchase Kajeet phones and service plans on their website. Phones start at $24.99 and plans start at only $4.99.

{Win It}

Thanks to Kajeet, you now have the opportunity to win a parental controlled cell phone for your child. One lucky entrant will win a phone of the companies choosing and will undoubtably make their child very happy this back-to-school season.

This giveaway will end on August 17, 2010 at 8pm EST and one winner will be chosen via random.org at that time. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen. Open to US residents 18+ only.

Mandatory Entry

In order to enter this giveaway, you must visit the Kajeet website and comment here about one feature or function of the service you like best.

No other entries will be counted unless the above mandatory entry is completed.

Additional Optional Entries

Feel free to do as many or as few of these as you like, but be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry so that it can be counted! If your email is not listed in your blogger profile, please leave one in your first comment so I can contact you if you win.

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If you had signed up for extra entries earlier in the week, then be sure to leave your extra entries as separate comments on each giveaway you wish to enter.

* I received a cell phone from Kajeet for the purpose of this review, but was not compensated in any other way. The thoughts, opinions and words expressed here are entirely my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

Kathleen

Kathleen is a homeschooling mom of four boys with a serious case of the Wanderlust bug. Her love of travel extends to her children, and has resulted in the family visiting 48 states to date, and traveling nearly a third of the year. She is the owner of LifeWith4Boys.com where you will find information on Family Travel, recipes, reviews, lifestyle and more.