Cell phone questions

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a pink Razr cell phone that has seen better days, and that I will be replacing soon. The battery has swelled up, and the battery cover will no longer stay on it.

My older niece will be 4 in July, and the younger one was 2 in February. They’re into pink, and they liked playing with Mr. Neville’s old cell phone the last time they were here. I realized that they might like my old phone as a toy, once I replace it. I will take the battery out before I give it to them, since it doesn’t look nice without the battery cover and they don’t need a battery for a toy cell phone.

Is a Razr with no battery a safe toy for kids that age?

Mr. Neville doesn’t want to sign up for a new contract yet, though, because he thinks that Verizon will start offering iPhones soon, and he wants one. Any thoughts on the likelihood of this, or when you think it might happen? I’m likely to be keeping the Razr until it dies or until Verizon starts offering iPhones.

2

You can get a new battery off eBay for $2 in the meantime.

3

I’d bet that the former will be true before the latter.

4

I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t be.

5

I would too. Mr. Neville disagrees with us. He thinks that Verizon may start offering iPhones this summer.

Anybody have any thoughts on the likelihood of that?

6

I let my two year old play with my old cell phone. I don’t see an issue with it as long as the battery’s out.

7

Most of what I’ve seen online about whether cell phones are safe for kids talks about electromagnetic radiation. That obviously isn’t going to be a problem if there’s no battery.

<PhysicsNitpick>I know that the phone does emit electromagnetic radiation even without a battery, but I don’t think anybody claims that the blackbody radiation emitted by room-temperature objects is hazardous.</PhysicsNitpick>

I don’t have kids, and I’m not an expert on what is safe for them to play with. I don’t think there are any parts that are likely to come off and choke one of them, but I’d like to get someone with more experience with kids and small objects to confirm that. I don’t think there is anything in the phone that is likely to be hazardous if one of them put the phone in her mouth (as especially the 2-year-old might do), but again I’d like a confirmation of that from someone who knows more about toy safety than I do. If the phone has survived three years with me, it probably isn’t terribly breakable, at least.

8

My brother has a great solution for this; he hands everything to the dogs first. The dogs chew off any small or removable parts, and then he hands it over to the kids. If my SIL is watching then he rinses it off in between. . . :wink:

9

:smiley:

But what would he do if he had cats instead of dogs?

10

You could even super-glue the battery cover on once the battery is removed, so it can’t pop off easily with the kids playing with it.

I have seen Razr phones broken at the hinge, I have no idea if the resulting 2 pieces would have any dangly bits that would be a hazard. With a 2 and 4 year old, I’d be fairly sure of it getting busted in half eventually.

11

Has he looked at a Droid? I love mine - it can do multiple things at once, and is cheaper. However if he is an Apple-worshiper it might not do.