The Pinwheel Kid Phone (Unboxing and First Impressions) 

I have a lot to say here so bear with me. this is all just my humble opinions and thoughts. So it was a great review. i really loved how you examined all aspects of the phone and showed us everything about it. the good and the bad. on another note I have looked at your podcast and unfortunately I cannot support it all. i support the warnings around giving kids social media, but not around smartphones and such in general. As someone who is autistic and often struggles to communicate technology has quite literally been a life saver. too often we conflate smartphone and tablet use with social media. that is not always the case. there is responsible , fun and good use of technology for kids and teens and adults, (even within social media use there is responsible and positive usage, for adults.) in fact due to not having certain medical technology( as well as the negligence and targeting by a public health nurse.) hubby and i's only daughter passed away. Now here's the thing. I love products like these kid- friendly phones. as someone who was exposed to tech at a young age you can bet I will be doing the same for any future children I may have and ill be using all the tools available to me such as toy phones and laptops and tablets when they are little, progressing to leap pads and kids smartwatch phones, then kids tablets these kid safe phones a few years later, and then finally when theyve earned it and i know i can trust them, adult tablets and phones. my parents were clear about the rules and responsibility. and they did a similar stepping up plan with me, although the tach we had available was different at the time ( i went from a walman cd player, to a little clip music player that was on a keychain, to a ipod, to a flipphone, to a blackberry cell phone, to an ipod touch with a wifi texting app and then finally a smartphone.) tech like anything else kids have to learn to use in responsibly and for that to happen parents need to teach them. but these products make it easier to do that and, more to the point they are in an of themselves extrinsic motivation for kids because they look and feel like a real adult smartphone. my mom worked as a teacher with juvie delinquents and kids with serious behavior problems and she will tell you that the concept of screen time misses the point entirely. it doesnt matter how much time people spend on screen as much as it matters what they are doing on those screens. there's a huge difference between a child who feels loved and supported enough at home to say "no, i dont want snap chat. im good thanks" and who comes home and spends 2 hours alone in their room watching a documentary on the ocean to learn as much as they can because they wish to become a marine biologist, or the young one who comes home from day care and sits and has their snack while they watch "the lion king" on disney on the couch with their blankie. versus the kid who is alone in their room sexting, sourcing drugs, and watching pornography, and making plans to steal and joy ride with their uncles car. my point is every situation is unique and blaming tech companies is not a good way to go about this because some of them may shut down and if for example apple shut down and stooped making devices, many autistic people who use these devices to learn and communicate when they have no voice would be lost. you want kids to have access to technology and you want them to be able to think critically and most importantly come to YOU with questions or concerns. SO MANY problems arise from a simple curiosity and instead of feeling comfortable going to the parents they simply try to find out for themselves beacuse they are afraid of getting in trouble or whatever which leads to bigger issues. the warning shouldnt be "kids shouldnt be exposed to tech." thats cheating. thats the lazy way out. the overall message needs to be "teach your kids to use technology in a way the promotes responsibility and clean fun and entertainment and learning, and to come to you with anything that doesn't feel right. never give trouble for bringing a problem or a question to you, instead let them know how much you love them, and let them know that you will figure out a solution together. give privacy appropriate to age and what has been earned." kids dont necessarily need mom or dad looking over their shoulder every moment of the day, however privacy is earned as is trust and that goes both ways. however also, in my opinion social media ( which i use for selling unwanted items and connecting with family and friends) is an entirely different beast children and teens dont need social media. simple, end of story. full stop. the exception is imo youtube kids and spotify kids. they should be allowed to have age appropriate music and to use youtube kids for enetrtainment (within limits) and learning but youtube kids needs a better monitoring system so that if a kid is learning to cook and wants to make a new breakfast recipie for their mom on mothers day and cant remember how, they can look up that cooking video and watch how. etc etc.

Appreciate the review. To your comment about the iPhone, this would unfortunately be impossible. Pinwheel is able to install their OS on top of Android, since Android allows any overlay a company can choose to do. Apple has iOS and that's it. Pinwheel wouldn't be able to put their overlay on top of iOS

The likely reason why parents can still add the "red level" apps is because this phone is meant to be able to grow with the child. There are probably 16-18 YOs using it.