A phone with a 3-inch screen and a see-through plastic body is now one of the cheapest devices in the country running Android 16. Unihertz started pushing the OTA to the Jelly Star on August 31, and after a week of watching the rollout unfold in comment threads and forums, I’m convinced the interesting part isn’t the feature list. It’s how carefully this small brand is handling a three-generation OS jump on hardware everyone else would have forgotten.
What actually landed on the Jelly Star
The update carries the July 5 security patch and a solid stack of features. There’s app cloning under Settings > Apps, expanded custom shortcuts, AI Circle Search tucked into Settings > Intelligent assistance, and finger gesture volume control under Settings > Gestures. A new System Manager bundles App Lock, Privacy Space and a Garbage Cleaner, and Google Assistant got a refresh. Check for it under Settings > About Phone > System Update.
The rollout is deliberately slow. The first batch was capped at 1,000 users with a feedback window, and the second batch is due in mid-September. Unihertz laid out the whole plan in its official announcement. If you’re checking today and seeing nothing, that’s by design, not a fault on your end.
After poking at these features on hardware this size, my honest take is that AI Circle Search feels cramped on a 3-inch display, and gesture volume control is more novelty than necessity. The ones that matter are app cloning and the System Manager tools, because they turn the Jelly Star into two phones in one pocket. That’s exactly the use case that matters here, which brings me to the local angle.
The bugs early updaters aren’t putting in headlines
I spent the past week reading comments under Unihertz’s Facebook announcement and the r/unihertz subreddit, and the picture is mixed. Several early updaters report Facebook and Google Maps crashing after the install. A few mention Spotify or banking apps misbehaving. Just as many say everything runs fine and they’re relieved after more than a year of waiting.
The wait itself has been a saga. Unihertz flagged Android 16 for the Jelly Star back in January, targeted April, then went quiet while technical issues piled up. The subreddit spent months alternating between skepticism and custom ROM daydreams. Which is why the 1,000-user cap now looks deliberate rather than stingy. Jumping from Android 13 to 16 on a Helio G99 was always going to shake compatibility bugs loose, and a small feedback batch is how you catch them without burning your whole user base.
My advice for SA buyers is simple. If your banking app is your daily driver, let the second batch settle before updating, and back up first. Stick to the official OTA, because unofficial flashes void support. If the update isn’t showing, the workaround doing the rounds is clearing the cache for the System Update app, then checking again.
Why this matters more in Mzansi than the changelog suggests
The Jelly Star sells locally through Unihertz South Africa, with a 12-month local warranty and compatibility across Vodacom, MTN and Telkom. The local marketing leans on toughness, all dusty mines and outdoor trips. I’d argue that undersells the real appeal. A pocketable, affordable, now-current Android phone is the ideal secondary device for load shedding evenings, a Drakensberg hike, or anyone tired of lugging a 6.7-inch slab around.
It also fits a pattern we’ve tracked on this site, where niche hardware finally gets local legs, from Honor’s recent SA launch to the slow arrival of niche tech in SA. Notably, I found almost no ZA-specific user chatter in the past week beyond the distributor’s own blog. I read that as quiet adoption rather than absent interest.
Two things to watch over the next fortnight: whether the mid-September batch reaches local units without region-specific delays, and whether a follow-up patch fixes the app crashes. If both land, this becomes a template for how small brands should support cheap phones.
I’ll admit a soft spot for devices that refuse to die. Most brands would have left a 2023 budget phone on Android 13 and moved on. Unihertz delayed, regrouped, and shipped anyway, with a rollout cautious enough to admit bugs might exist. That’s a louder statement about small phones having long lives than any spec sheet, and it’s why the Jelly Star earns a spot on your shortlist if you’ve ever wanted a phone that disappears into a pocket.
