This is all so helpful. Thanks christep. Hong Kong plans are significantly cheaper than US and he just learned from his boss-to-be that he will want to use Whatsapp. That clarifies a lot of things for us. Your perspective is quite useful. We knew things could be different, just couldn't predict how. I can see that it makes sense to go immediately for a smart phone without a transition period of basic phone such as I was thinking of. Sounds like that basic phone won't do a lot of good. I appreciate the advice.