The Gabb Phone 4 Pro ($199.99 plus monthly service) is a customized Android phone that gives teens basic communication tools while providing parents with peace of mind. Young people can make calls, send texts, and video chat with approved contacts, while parents can monitor the content of conversations and track the phone's location. While parents might feel good about giving this phone to their kids thanks to its tight controls, teens will likely find it woefully restrictive. The Bark Phone (starting at $39 per month) gives kids more freedom to access the apps they want, while still allowing parents to monitor what they're up to, so it remains our Editors’ Choice kids' phone.

Design: A Cloaked Samsung Galaxy A15

The Gabb Phone 4 Pro is actually a Samsung Galaxy A15 5G—it even has the Samsung logo on the back—but it runs Gabb’s exclusive software on top of Android 14. It's meant for kids ages 13 to 18, while the Gabb Phone 4 ($149.99) is intended for kids ages 9 to 14.

The phone measures 6.3 by 3.0 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 7.1 ounces. The size makes it appropriate for teens, but less so for preteens who might have smaller hands. It's made of plastic but has an appealing design that feels more expensive than it is.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

The 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display is sharp and bright, with a resolution of 2,340 by 1,080 pixels. The screen is covered by Dragontrail Pro glass. During my week of testing, I scratched the bottom corner of the screen. You’ll want to put a screen protector and case on this phone, particularly as it's intended for kids. The phone lacks an IP rating for water or dust protection, so you’ll want to ensure it stays away from puddles, pools, and bathtubs. 

There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack for wired headphones and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless ones. 

The phone is powered by a MediaTek 6835 processor with 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. A microSD card can add up to 1TB of additional storage, though it's unlikely you’ll need that much, considering you’re severely limited in what you can download. 

The phone has a 50MP primary camera, a 5MP ultra-wide camera, and a 2MP macro camera. There’s also a 13MP front-facing camera for selfies. Gabb’s camera app waters down the hardware's capabilities significantly. It only allows you to take photos at 0.5x, 1x, or 2x, with no other modes available (like portrait or night shot). You can choose the aspect ratio of your photos (1:1, 3:4, or 9:16) and turn the flash on and off. You can also take videos with the phone, but the same restrictions apply. 

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

You can unlock the phone via the embedded fingerprint sensor or facial recognition. The fingerprint sensor is more secure, but I found it inconsistent in testing. It often failed to read my fingerprint. Facial recognition, meanwhile, worked seamlessly.

In our battery test, in which we stream a full HD video over Wi-Fi with the screen at maximum brightness, the phone lasted 14 hours and 3 minutes, which is excellent.

The phone does basic sub-6GHz 5G with support for C-band spectrum and the older Wi-Fi 5 protocol. It performs reasonably well on US wireless networks and did OK in Wi-Fi testing. Gabb doesn't disclose which network it relies on to provide service.

Plans: Simple Pricing

Gabb offers three plans: Starter, Standard, and Advanced. These plans cannot be added to any existing plans from any other service provider and can only be purchased directly through Gabb. You pay for the phone in full up front and the service runs separately from your existing cellular provider. It doesn't require signing a contract, but you can save money by paying for 12 or 24 months of service in advance.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

The Starter plan costs $24.99 per month and comes with unlimited talk and text, the Gabb Messenger app, the Gabb Guard spam call blocker, nine parent-enabled essential apps, and 10GB of Gabb Cloud backup. The $29.99 Standard plan includes everything in the Starter plan and adds image and group texting and Gabb Music, an app that streams radio-style music with no explicit lyrics. The Advanced plan costs $34.99 per month; it includes everything in the Standard plan and adds 3GB of mobile data, access to Gabb-curated apps, and Gabb Music+, which allows your kids to create curated playlists and even download songs.

You can add an optional Gabb Warranty, which protects specifically against drops and spills, for $4.99 per month. I tested the Advanced plan for this review. 

Bark, meanwhile, allows you to pay for its phone monthly for $10, while its service fees start at $29 per month. The basic minimum cost is $39 per month for the phone and the cheapest service option together.

Setup: Too Many Parental Apps

Setting up the Gabb Phone 4 Pro service could be easier. First, you need to download the MyGabb app (free for Android and iOS) and create a parental Gabb account. When you receive your child’s phone, you have to set it up via the MyGabb app on your phone.

Make sure the Gabb phone is turned on and sitting beside you. Sign in to your Gabb account in the app, go to the menu in the upper right corner, and hit Add Device. A QR code pops up on the phone, and after scanning it, it will then take you through the setup process. 

To manage your child’s messages, you must download the Gabb Messenger app and sign in again. With Gabb Messenger, you can build your child’s approved contact list and manage their message-deleting privileges. You can let them delete messages instantly, after 30 days, or never.

Once you’re comfortable with the messenger settings, you’re done with the initial setup. It is cumbersome that Gabb requires two apps on your phone instead of one. It would be easier if Gabb Messenger lived inside the MyGabb app. 

Messaging: Tight Control

Parents can closely monitor their kids' messages and video calls. The Gabb Messenger app includes Safe Video Calling, which monitors for nudity and, if detected, automatically disables the call and alerts the parent. It also automatically blocks group video calls or calls from unknown callers. You can disable the video calling feature altogether if you want.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

Parents cannot read their kids' messages, but will receive alerts if the text messages contain images with explicit content, harmful words from unknown contacts, or links from unknown contacts.

Tracking: See and Set Boundaries

Parents can monitor their child’s location from the MyGabb app home screen. Hitting the Locate button will bring up a map showing you exactly where your child (or their phone, at least) is located.

The MyGabb app also lets parents manage and set up Safe Zones. To create a Safe Zone, hit the button in the app, which will take you to a map. You can long-press any location on the map to create a Safe Zone. A slider below the map allows you to set the Zone's radius. Unfortunately, you can only create circular zones, rather than irregularly shaped ones that might include defined spaces like neighborhoods or school property.

Location tracking updates every 15 minutes by default, though you can lower that to 10 minutes or increase it to 30 or 60 minutes. Unfortunately, this means that your kid could slip out of the Safe Zone without you immediately knowing about it, though I didn’t notice any delays during testing.

Apps: Monitoring by Elimination 

The Gabb Phone 4 Pro provides access only to approved apps. There are two layers of approval here. First, Gabb only offers a small selection of apps that it has approved. Second, parents then pick and choose from this small number of Gabb-approved apps.

(Credit: Sarah Lord)

The phone's home screen features a row of four apps: Phone, Gabb Messenger, Gabb Music, and Camera. Swiping up on the home screen brings up all the phone's apps. These include My Files, Contacts, Play Store, and Settings, followed by a Notes app, MyGabb, GabbID (which shows you the name of your ID and indicates if you are signed in), Photos, Clock, Gabb Weather, Calendar, Gallery, the VLC video player, Calculator, and Gabb Maps.

There is a host of security-minded apps. These include Samsung Knox Manage, which automatically locks the phone if it senses a compromised operating system; Samsung Knox E-Fota, which allows Gabb to install security patches; Knox Remote Support, which allows a Gabb support person to access your phone during a support call; and the Knox Browser (a locked-down web browser).

Additionally, both the Starter and Standard plans have access to nine apps that parents can choose to add to the phone: 24 Game, Bible App by Olive Tree, Chadbad.org Daily Torah Study, Chess and Solitaire, Gabb Maps, Gospel Library, Quran, and Sora by OverDrive Education.

Parents of Advanced plan users can peruse the entire list of Gabb-approved apps, though there are precious few that kids will likely want. The ESPN app is available, as are apps for the four major sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL), though only the Reuters app is available for news. There are only a handful of games, most of which are word or brain games. 

There are a surprising number of banking apps, including Robinhood, the investing app, and American Express. I’m not sure why kids would need access to these apps—it seems counterintuitive that a parent would let their kid have access to an Amex card, but not the internet.  

The Gabb software and paltry apps list is so limited that it's almost impossible for kids to do anything with the phone other than call, text, and take photos. But then, that seems to be the idea. Gabb will let you monitor overall screen time and track precisely what your child does in any of its apps.