Edited by author 08-19-2005 07:13 AM
Hi, Elaine! It's a phone for parents to buy for kids, not a phone for kids to buy themselves. It's a phone to give to your kid when you don't trust him/her to use a phone responsibly. It's a phone that says your kid is only a kid. It's a phone you don't want to admit to owning. On the plus side, it might be stolen out of spite but not because someone else actually wants it.

You could probably tell people it's a Medical Alert device and get some sympathy. Come to think, that would let you take it into classes, too. No one's going to know it's a phone, because it doesn't look like one (it looks like a cheap TV remote), although talking into it is kind of a giveaway. You could practise mumbling like a schizophrenic all the time so people don't know when you're using the phone, although that isn't really going to help your cool image in school, either.

Of course you can keep it to give to your mum when she gets old, has senile dementia, and wanders out to the shops in her slippers.

Or remind her now that you will get to choose her nursing home, and take a look at the latest news from Vonage or Skype instead; http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/2373 for instance. Maybe you can even persuade your school (or the kid with glasses whom nobody talks to) to set up a server computer for free wireless phone calls on campus. See what your mum thinks about that - no bills??? I think that has to be her main worry, not phone misuse and grooming.
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as i AM a kid these are my thoughts......
In september, i'm going to have to walk an hour to and from school, but i'm a safety freak so I told my mom that I either walked home with two firearms and a butcher knife or got a cell phone for safety reasons. Of course, most kids these days give Bill Gates a run for his money on the way work we technology. I'm the only one in the house who can work the DVD player, computer, the sound system in the car, the list goes on. I think very maturely and sophisticated for my age, and there's NO way i could think with five buttons. Then my mom, dad, grandpa, and nana said that if i feel more comfortable walking home with a cell phone, then i could have one. My grandpa said he'd by me this kick-butt awesome phone from virgin mobile but then one day my mum read an article in the paper (i'm gonna kill the reporter Carol King) about this super childish phone called the firefly. When my parents showed me one, i was disgusted. I think the 911 button is cool, but the "mummy!" button is a waste of time. But anyway, 5 buttons? FIVE BUTTONS? Don't my parents understand?! In grade 2 I wrote a 273 page book and was considering having it published! Because I go to a private and EVERYONE is super-rich and has kick-butt phones, but if I get the FreakFly, I'm gonna be like the mental kid in my class. Why do I need a phone that has "11-going-on-3" and "Oh, ya, it was an accident, I think it's at the bottom of Thetis Lake" written all over it?! When I first saw one I nearly cried at the fact I can't take pictures, I can't text message, AND I can't call the hot guy I saw at the beach yesterday unless he's "mummy approved". HELP ME!!!!!!! I think I will put a revolver or two in my back pack.........

It's wasted on kids (as usual) - it's actually the ultimate shag phone ! Twenty "acceptable" phone numbers should be *more* than enough for those people that can afford a mistress/male equivalent. If you need a shag phone you probably won't want to waste time texting anyway. Very small and therefore discrete. Flashing lights for when you *ahem* lose it in the dark. Minimal number of buttons for when you have your hands full.. Perfect !

So, is a kid's phone clever or really stupid? What about if you can't make calls with it?