How to Gift a Phone Plan

Everyone has phone bills. They are no fun! The costs associated with phones and phone plans are growing every year, and anything that helps cover those costs is a big win in our books! Phone plans, however, are a bit harder to gift, but are definitely worth it if your friend is talking about their phone plan and griping about the total cost. A variety of wireless companies have gift cards on their website that users can spend toward their monthly bills. If you want to keep the gift nice and simple we recommend going with that! 

Find out what their cell phone provider is and get an eGift card from their website. It will be a lovely gift, no matter who they are! If, however, you are interested in getting something more specific, let’s dive into some of the ins and outs of how to gift a phone plan and other phone-related items! 

Gifting a Phone, Watch, or Tablet

This is a great place to start, but it is a risky proposition. Unless you are prepared to give a serious gift to your friend or family, it is likely that you will get a gift card that’s able to be used towards one of these devices. Gift cards in this section will be to companies that are tech-related, gifting things like phones, watches, and tablets. These items are oftentimes able to be purchased in their phone carrier’s online store, so if you are interested in that we recommend the same course of action as above. 

Getting a gift card toward one of these items also allows you to find something that you think they will really like. Nowadays, all devices have dozens of options that are similar in many more ways than they are distinct. Deciding that you want a tablet is great, but sifting through all the tablets out there is a quick road toward feeling overwhelmed with it all. 

To help on that count, a short list of phones, smart watches, or tablets along with the gift card can prove to be very valuable! We recommend doing a bit of research to figure out which device works best for them and your first stop is right here! We have a short list of our top three tablets, watches, and phones for your friends. Naturally, spending a few hundred dollars on someone’s gift is a little extreme, but a $25 or $50 gift card to somewhere like Best Buy or Verizon along with a note about which devices you think are the best fit for them. If you are feeling especially brave add a tag that if they need some extra help narrowing it down you will do the research there too. Let’s jump into it! 

Our Top 3 Tablets of 2023

There are a ton of tablets on the market and there is enough variability between them to convince us that there is no winner among them. It’s all about what features they want. Someone who uses their tablet for drawing and sketching is looking for something different than someone who uses it to stream and play games, browse the internet, or anything else! After each item, we will add a tag about what it does best. From there, you can decide if you like what you’re seeing or are interested in some of the other best tablets of 2023. 

1. Microsoft Surface Pro 9

Price: $1,000 

Buy a Microsoft gift card

This is our favorite tablet for people who want a two-in-one experience. The Surface Pro 9, from Microsoft, is a detachable tablet/laptop that combines the two in an excellent fashion. The newest version has a better processor and more ram, but the Surface Pro 8 is a little more affordable if you don’t need the latest and greatest. Keep your eyes open for deals during those times of the year in order to ensure that they are getting the best price on their new tablet! 

Unfortunately, the keyboard and pen are not included with the tablet itself, which we think is pretty lame, but the tablet on its own is still a great purchase for something that is, in essence, a laptop in tablet form. 

2. Amazon Fire HD 10

Price: $150

Buy an Amazon gift card

The best tablet for people who want to stream all their favorite shows. After looking at the one thousand dollar price tag of the Surface Pro, how could a $150 tablet ever compare? Let’s dive into what the Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet has to offer. It is fast but does not hold a candle to the processing power of the Surface Pro 9. While it has much less processing power, this tablet is still able to stream HD video and social media. It does not, however, connect to the Google Play AppStore, so you will have much less variety when it comes to the apps you can download on the device. Some tablets, like iPads, have that connection to the same AppStore that phones have, allowing for a ton of usability. 

This tablet is best for people who are content with browsing the internet, streaming videos, and scrolling through social media. 

3. Apple iPad 9th Generation

Price: $329

Buy an Apple gift card

The best tablet for all-around users. This device is surprisingly affordable for an Apple product, and its low price is the reason we have it on this list instead of its big brother, the iPad Pro. You can access the App Store and download the same apps available on the phone, and this bigger screen and robust processor allow for varied usage. We were not impressed by the $100 price drop going from the Surface Pro 9 to the Surface Pro 8 whereas the difference between the iPad Pro and the 9th Gen iPad makes this a great deal. 

Mobile games are growing in popularity, and a tablet like this is a great way to play some of the bigger games on the phone. It is also a nice way to keep someone’s phone game-free and have all the mobile games on the tablet if that is something that interests them. 

Our Top 3 Smartwatches of 2023

Smartwatches have come a long, long way. There are three in particular that we think are all fine choices for anyone who is interested in getting a gift card for someone interested in one. Just like tablets, we think that a bit of research goes a long way, so without further ado, here are our top three smartwatches of 2023!

1. Apple Watch Series 8

Price: $350

Buy an Apple gift card

This is the best overall smartwatch. The Apple Watch Series 8 is a fantastic combination of all the things that make smartwatches great. If you know that your friend is into smartwatches and has something like this in mind, an Apple gift card is a great way to help pay for this great watch. There are people who switch their phones from android to Apple just to be able to use these watches, that’s how good they are! 

The series 8, however, does not add a ton of features that the series 7 does not match, but the price differential is not crazy either, making it an easy decision to upgrade to the latest Apple watch to enjoy its fitness tracking, notifications, and cellular data capabilities. 

2. Fitbit Versa 2

Price: $115

The Fitbit Versa 2 is a fantastic and cheap option for those interested in getting a smartwatch with basic capabilities without having one designed after their phone. The $115 price tag is irresistible for people who want to have a smartwatch that functions very well, if without the bells and whistles of the other two contenders on this list. 

A big thing about this watch is that it does not have the app connectivity that you will see with the Apple Watch or the Samsung Galaxy watch. That being said, it has fantastic exercise-tracking and sleep-tracking capabilities and is able to receive messages from Android devices as well as send out pre-programmed replies, perfect for if you are on a run and don’t bring your phone along. 

3. Samsung Galaxy Watch Series 5

Price: $250

Another affordable option, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Series 5 is cheaper than the Apple Watch and perfect for Android users. If you have an Apple the Apple watch is for you, and if you have an Android then this watch is for you! Samsung doubled down and made this watch uber-resilient and reliable so you can be confident that this purchase will go a long way as you enjoy the features that smartwatches provide. Like the Apple Watch, this one comes with great app connectivity and a cellular option, making this one, along with the Apple Watch, a fantastic way to head into the great outdoors without worrying about taking your phone along. 

Our Top 3 Phones of 2023

This is the hardest category of all. So much recent phone technology has gone into cameras, screen resolution, processing power, and battery life. The quality of life has not changed a ton from generation to generation, and a lot of the app development is happening separately from the generational development of the phones themselves. This means that older phones, from a few generations ago, retain many of the base capabilities of the shiny and new phones nowadays. For that reason, we will not list our top three phones of 2023, rather we will talk about three key factors when it comes to picking out a new phone. 

• Camera
• Processor
• Cost

1. Camera 

New phones have focused on creating the best cameras that they can. Each model and new generation has new cameras, leading to the newest phones having multiple camera lenses on the back in order to take the best possible pictures. This is all well and good as long as the user wants to be able to take amazing pictures or be able to enjoy the most recent camera technology, be it abilities to take pictures in the dark, photo editing, or new photo modes. 

Now don’t get us wrong, this is pretty great. Being able to take crystal-clear pictures on your phone is a huge win, but it is not something that everyone needs. Some people have dedicated cameras for their picture taking and others don’t take a lot of pictures in the first place. When deciding how important the camera is, think about how much your friend interacts with their camera and the features they use. Alongside that, think about how much stake your friend puts into their camera. If they are okay with their pictures getting blurry when zoomed in or don’t take many pictures on their phone, consider how phones’ cameras affect their pricing. 

2. Processor

Another major upgrade in new phones is the processor. New phones are able to complete impressive tasks with their processors, from streaming UHD video, playing some graphics-intensive games, and much more. Long gone are the days when phones were chiefly able to send texts, call, and play block-breaker in your spare time. Does your friend do any tasks on their phone that require a lot of processing power? If they don’t use it a lot then the newer phones, especially the pro or plus versions of them, are giving them features that they don’t need.

New phones have chips that approach what’s in laptops in them, allowing them to complete a wide variety of tasks at wicked speeds. The thing is — some people just don’t need that. There are a lot of other limits when it comes to completing tasks, namely typing or reading through pages.

An honorable mention goes to the battery life of new phones. They have tremendously robust batteries inside, but new phones, with their heavier processors, also chew up more battery than those in the past. New phones definitely have batteries that last longer, but that is often not a dealbreaker when we get to our third idea — cost. 

3. Cost

This is, of course, one of the biggest considerations when it comes to figuring out which phone is the best for your friend. It is natural that they don’t want to spend too much money on a new phone, but you also do not want to leave them with a phone recommendation that is super cheap but does not do what they want it to. Smartphones are super convenient, and small annoyances from a phone, like pages taking too long to load or having to conserve battery life at work can make it much less pleasant to have a phone around. Under those circumstances, try to find the right balance. Just as having too little can be annoying, having too much, while they won’t notice it when they use their phone, will hurt when they check their bank statement each month.

How to Gift a Phone Plan

By now, you may have noticed that gifting a phone plan is a bit more challenging than it may seem. As always, a gift card to their phone provider is a good place to start. Whenever you give them the gift, they have the perfect opportunity to boot up their account portal and put that gift card towards their next month’s payment. That feeling is oh so sweet, and they will get another dose of that joy when their next month’s payment is due and they see it’s less than usual. With how expensive phone plans are getting, gifting a phone plan means a lot to them and will go a long way in terms of gifts. 

If you want to get a bit more creative, instead of figuring out how to gift a phone plan to them, you can do some research and recommend a new device (with a gift card attached, of course!). There is an overabundance of devices on the market, and doing the research ahead of time to figure out which one works best for them is a huge relief when they are stuck thinking about which phone to get or which tablet works best for them. From there, you can use GiftYa’s handy search bar to find the best gift card and send it directly to your friend!