This is for kids who don't yet have a smart phone, not as a smart phone replacement for kids who already had smartphones. I made something similar for my kids(basically, a phone with buttons that can call a fixed set of people), and my kids love it, and use it multiple times per day.
If the kid doesn't have a smartphone, and looks around and sees kids who do have one, they're gonna be envious and pissed when their parents tell them they can't have one. I know because it's analogous to what I felt when I was still slumming it with my TI-99/4A when every other kid had a NES back in the late 80s.
Probably the best thing is a CB radio. Let them talk to any other kids in town but no chance of weirdness.