Telstra's take on the best phones for kids and teens
Pre-Paid phone kids and parents will love
Thinking of buying your child a phone?
While many parents actively try to manage their children's screen time, there comes a time when you’ll want to make sure they are able to stay in touch (and chances are, they’ve been nagging you for a phone long before then).
When it is time to buy your child their first phone you’ll be glad to know it doesn’t need to break the bank. There are a range of full-featured yet inexpensive phones that are suitable for the needs of children of any age.
Stay in control with a Pre-Paid SIM
In addition to buying an inexpensive phone, you can also manage costs by choosing a Pre-Paid SIM.
Telstra Pre-Paid is a great way to go as you can both agree to a set amount of credit each month. This way, you reduce their risk of incurring charges for excess data usage or in-app purchases. And if they do run out of credit, you'll be in control of topping up.
As well as ensuring you don’t get any unwelcome large bills at the end of the month, it's a great way to help a child learn about budgeting and managing their own usage.
Smart phones for teens: $229 - $300
Also priced at $299, the OPPO A53s is another economical yet fully-fledged smart phone that will satisfy tech-savvy young users. It boasts a 6.5 inch screen, triple-lens camera, fast gaming and streaming performance and $10 Pre‑Paid credit.
Delivering a triple-lens camera and powerful battery at just $229, the Telstra Evoke Pro 2 is great value.
OPPO A53s
Full 6.5 inch screen, triple-lens camera, fast gaming and streaming performance.
RRP: $299. Includes $10 Pre-Paid credit.
Telstra Evoke Pro 2
Triple-lens camera, efficient octa-core processor, 6.22 inch HD+ Super Full View display.
RRP: $229. Includes $10 Pre-Paid credit.
For younger kids: phones under $100
If your child isn’t ready for a smart phone, the Telstra Lite 2 is a great handset for calling and messaging. At just $49 including $10 credit, it still has a rear and front-facing camera and music player.
Finally, the Telstra Essential is a great middle ground. Priced at $79, it gets closer to smart phone territory yet is cheap enough to give to accident-prone kids without too much stress. Or take a step up with the Telstra Essential Smart 3, with a high quality HD screen.
Telstra Lite 2
Affordably priced handset with front and rear camera, torch, calculator and music player.
RRP $49. Includes $10 Pre-Paid credit.
Telstra Essential
Large 5 inch screen, 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and fast quad-core processor.
RRP $79. Includes $10 Pre-Paid credit.
Telstra Essential Smart 3
5.5 inch HD+ screen resistant, 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, quad core processor.
RRP $99. Includes $10 Pre-Paid credit.
Choosing a Pre-Paid Plan
All Telstra Pre-Paid handsets come with a SIM starter kit and included credit. From here, you can choose to activate your SIM on either our Pre-Paid Complete plan or Pre-Paid Long Life Plus plan.
For regular usage of calls and data-hungry applications, Pre-Paid Complete offers included monthly data plus unlimited calls and texts to Australian numbers.
For younger kids with handsets more for being contactable than for recreational use, Pre-Paid Long Life Plus offers a long expiry of credit, so you won’t need to top up each month.
Why choose Telstra Pre-Paid?
Whichever phone and Pre-Paid service you choose, you’ll get the peace of mind of having your kids connected to Australia’s largest, most reliable mobile network.
Plus, you can get Telstra Plus points every time you recharge, and any unused data will rollover each month, up to a maximum of 200GB.
Recharge easily with My Telstra
The My Telstra app makes it easy to manage all of your Telstra services in one place.
As well as your own mobile account, you can view each Pre-Paid service for each member of your family. You can even name each service so you can easily tell them apart.
When it's time to recharge, you can do it directly from the app, without having to purchase a voucher from a retail outlet.
How to recharge your Prepaid in the My Telstra app video transcript
Recharge your Service with our My Telstra app
- Login to the My Telstra app using your Telstra ID
- Open the Service tab and choose your Pre-paid service
- Select Recharge now and follow the prompts.
Prefer a mobile on a postpaid plan?
If you'd prefer a phone with a postpaid plan, there is still a great range of affordable phones available, including
You can purchase a postpaid phone on a 12-month or 24-month device repayment plan, or purchase it outright.
Once you've selected a phone, our month-to-month postpaid plans start at $55/mth with 40GB data and unlimited calls (within Australia) included each month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Each Pre-Paid phone comes with a SIM starter kit with instructions on how to activate your SIM.
You can also activate a SIM in the My Telstra app.
You can recharge your Telstra Pre-Paid service in the app or in My Account using your credit card, debit card, PayPal or a voucher.
Telstra Pre-Paid doesn't allow for direct debit from your bank account. However, you can set up an auto recharge so you don’t have to worry about running out of calls, texts and data. You’ll also continue receiving low credit and expiry SMS notifications from us.
