Prakash Advani's Blog

When the JioPhone first launched, it was a game changer, bringing smartphone-like features to a feature phone. They even called it a “smart feature phone.”

The main benefit was the bundling: for ?2000, you could get a handset plus 2 years of recharge. This offer is now discontinued. So, let’s examine if the JioPhone/Jio Bharat still makes sense today.

Pros:

• Affordability: It’s a cheaper solution for people who primarily need to make calls and send SMS.
• Basic Connectivity: Ideal for those who need to stay reachable without the complexities of a smartphone. There’s a growing trend of people wanting to simplify their lives by giving up smartphones, and this fits right in.
• Suitability for Kids and Seniors: It may work well for children and older parents. However, it lacks features like GPS tracking, which smartphones easily provide for family location tracking.

Cons:

• Locked to Jio: The handset is locked to Jio, limiting your network options.
• Unmet Expectations: Initially, it seemed promising, as people expected smartphone-like features at a much lower cost.
• Limited App Support: The current generation of Jio Bharat Phones runs on ThreadX RTOS and doesn’t support popular third-party apps like WhatsApp and YouTube, only Jio’s own apps. In contrast, the original JioPhone and Jio Prima do support these apps.
• Difficulty in Transferring Contacts: Transferring contacts to another handset is cumbersome. While I managed to extract contacts from the original JioPhone using Bluetooth to a laptop, I couldn’t sync them with the Jio Bharat phone.

Here is a comparison of different JioPhone/Jio Bharat Phone options: