I like that you can't text images, that's a good thing, IMO. As for group texting ... that's not a compelling enough reason to give a kid something as lethal as a smartphone (I don't think that's exaggerating when you look at the correlation between smartphone usage and mental health crisis). We've managed things well ... often by having the parent be the recipient of the group texts in middle school. Once they hit 9th grade, we use something like Pinwheel phones, which allow for group texting.