No WhatsApp Support on JioPhone! Comes with 500MB Daily 4G Data Limit

HIGHLIGHTS

-JioPhone feature phone announced on Friday by Reliance Jio
-The unlimited data comes with a 500MB daily limit for accessing high-speed internet
-At the moment, WhatsApp is not supported by the JioPhone

The Reliance Jio on Friday, unveiled the feature phone, as the JioPhone which aims to bridge the digital divide prevalent between the haves of the smartphones, and the have nots of the feature phones. The upfront cost of the phone is Rs. 1,500 – which will be paid back in three years – it’s one of the most inexpensive ways for users to get 4G data access, and it’s backed up by special plans which on paper sounds really good. However, when the phone was revealed, there’s some fine print that wasn’t announced.

Although the data plans of JioPhone mentioned ‘unlimited’ data access but there is a daily usage limit – as mentioned by Gadgets 360. Users are allowed daily to access up to 500MB (half a gigabyte) of high-speed Internet data if they are paying for the Rs. 153 plan. After the exhaustion of that limit, Internet can still be used but the speeds will drop and will only resume at the end of the day.

As per Mukesh Ambani, the Reliance Chairman, the Rs. 309 Jio plan will be needed in order to use the Jio Phone TV-Cable. In that, the users get an access to 1GB of high-speed data daily, which is for 56 days, and thus the users get four times as much data.

Jio Phone WhatsApp support

Also, the JioPhone includes numerous apps – on stage, the Mann Ki Baat app was revealed, and Facebook was also spotted, but “at the moment”, the phone is not supporting WhatsApp, Gadgets 360 comprehended. There is a possibility of WhatsApp being added later, although it’s surprising that it’s not in the launch lineup, considering its immense popularity in India with 200 million active users as of February 2017. Reliance Jio has its own chat platform, JioChat is planning to reach a sizable audience that hasn’t adopted WhatsApp till now.

Details will become clearer once the pre-booking starts, as Jio keeps a lot of the details in the fine print. During the launch of Reliance Jio in September, the company did the same thing. During that time, stating its Welcome Offer, the company made no notice about the 4GB FUP limit that was in place at the time.

Reliance Jio also talked about unlimited night usage, but there was no mention that this was only for a three-hour window, from 2AM to 5AM. It also talked about a rate of Rs. 50/ GB, but the actual pricing was a lot higher, for the majority of its plans.

It can be noticed that the launch of JioPhone will have a similar pattern, and other fine print may turn up in the coming days.