Cheapie unlocked phone?

[Farrar]

Ds lost the kid phone. We decided to get a new one for his brother too so they each have their own. We're happy with our plan ($10 for each line a month, more talk and text than they can use). No data. But we don't have phones to hand down to them and apparently AT&T doesn't sell any cheapie phones anymore so they gave us the SIM cards instead.

 

Anyone bought a decent phone recently for this type of line?

 

I am hesitant to get one like this:

https://www.amazon.com/BLU-Unlocked-Dual-SIM-Camera-Battery/dp/B00O5EUBSI/ref=pd_sim_107_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=24311VF9A5621PGKZNH3

because they're going to primarily use it for texting. Their old one was the slide screen with the little keyboard under it.

 

I see this one on Amazon. Not a bad deal... anyone got a better one?

https://www.amazon.com/JR-Factory-Unlocked-Android-Smartphone/dp/B00OJCOQPK/ref=sr_1_1?s=mobile&ie=UTF8&qid=1475963180&sr=1-1&keywords=unlocked+cell+phone+cheap

[Lanny]

It is a "dumb" phone and they are old, but if you only want it for texting and voice, my all time favorite phone for that was a Nokia 6800 Messaging  Device with a QWERTY keyboard. Nothing, IMO, beats that for sending SMS messages.  I would buy one ONLY if you verify, before you buy it, that replacement batteries are available, on eBay or somewhere.  A month or 2 ago, I read something about a BLU phone (the 2 links in the OP are for BLU phones) and it was quite positive.  

 

NOTE: The 2nd one says "Factory Unlocked".  Those are like the Android phones we've purchased in the superstore here. They left the factory unbranded (nothing specific to a particular carrier).  They have better (cleaner) Software/Firmware than a phone that was Branded to a carrier and was then "Unlocked"