Only the simplest

Review: Xplora One - Good children's mobile for parents who want to keep track

Xplora One is a distraction-free mobile for children, and a way to keep track for the parent.

Published 2 April 2026 - 10:35

If not sooner, you usually need to get a mobile for your child when they are big enough to get to and from school on their own. It is rarely an age when you want to give the child a complete entertainment and distraction machine that makes them not look when they cross the street.

This is the target group that Norwegian Xplora has aimed at. Previously, the product range mostly consisted of watches that the child wears on their arm and which are practically a bit like compact mobiles. Now, in collaboration with Finnish HMD, they have taken that concept to a more traditional mobile format, albeit an unusually small mobile.

The format has many advantages over watches, as anyone who has tried to use a watch as a mobile knows. It is easier to make calls on a regular mobile, and let's not even talk about sending text messages.

Xplora One is perhaps half the size of an iPhone, and significantly thicker. It has a touchscreen and a few buttons. In addition to the volume and on/off button, there is an alarm button that, if you hold it down, calls the parent directly and sends a text message asking for help.

It comes with cases in two different colours for the phone that are easy to replace. The phone also has loops that you can attach a strap to.

You buy Xplora One with a subscription that is activated by Xplora. You must confirm this before they can send the mobile, so check the emails you receive carefully when you have ordered the mobile.

The screen is not particularly high-resolution or bright and shifts quite a bit when I hold the phone at different angles. It doesn't really matter, this is a phone that you should only use if you need it.

Simple on purpose

There are few functions in the phone, on purpose of course. You can make calls and write text messages on the on-screen keyboard, either directly to the parent via the Xplora app or as SMS. Unless otherwise specified by the parent, the child can only communicate with contacts that the parent has added to the address book via their app. There is a simple calendar, alarm, a basic camera so you can send pictures and videos in messages, and actually two games. You can only access them if the parent has granted it. One of the games is, of course, Snake, after all, it is HMD that makes the Nokia phones that provide the hardware.

The mobile's battery life naturally varies with how much you call. During my testing, Xplora One lasts several days on a charge.

The real features that distinguish Xplora One are instead found in the app installed on the parent's mobile. Here, the parent can see information about their children's mobiles (you can have several Xplora mobiles or watches connected to the account), such as battery life and location on the map. The position is only updated occasionally, but you can also enable live tracking for up to 30 minutes. You can also add so-called safe zones on the map. You choose a point on the map and adjust a radius around the point and name the place, for example, the school. Every time the child enters or leaves the zone, you receive a notification, so you know, for example, when the child has left school or arrived safely.

My main objection to Xplora One is that those notifications sometimes take a very long time. When I experiment with safe zones and am out and about, it happens that it takes over 20 minutes from when Xplora One leaves the zone until I receive a notification on my regular mobile. If you are an anxious parent with your first child on their way to school alone, I can imagine it might feel like a long wait for an update.

Initially, it takes significantly longer for Xplora One to update, and it turns out that the mobile had mobile data turned off. Or GPRS service as it's called in the settings. It is noticeable that it is an old button phone at its core, but it supports 4G and therefore works without problems even in networks where 2G and 3G have been shut down.

Xplora also has a feature called Go Play, which despite having written about it several times, I never quite manage to grasp, but I'll give it another try: Xplora One has a built-in step counter, and these steps can be used to earn points. You can then use these points to bid on things like game consoles and other electronics in auctions on the platform. There is also a premium service you can subscribe to that, among other things, gives you challenges and other ways to earn more points.

I'm not sure I think this service fits into Xplora's concept, but the fact that the phone has both a pedometer and an incentive for the child to get as many steps as possible is of course good.

Overall, I think Xplora One is really successful. The alternatives if you don't want to give your child a smartphone are either Xplora's watches or a simpler button phone. Xplora One is easier to use than both.

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