During its 40th Annual General Meeting, Chairman of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani announced the company’s first 4G VoLTE feature phone – the JioPhone. The ‘Made in India’ device comes pre-loaded with the company’s various offerings such as Jio Music, Jio Cinema and Jio TV.
JioPhone Features and Specifications
The JioPhone features a 2.4-inch (320 x 240 pixels) QVGA display, single SIM slot, FM Radio, microSD card slot, headphone jack, torch light, rear camera, 4-Way navigation key and Alphanumeric keypad. It also comes with support for 22 major Indian languages and voice commands to perform actions such as dialling or rejecting calls and opening apps.
Qualcomm and Spreadtrum have both made claims that the phone is powered by their processors. While there is no official word from the company, it is possible that some units are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 205 Mobile platform while others will pack a Spreadtrum processor.
The device also supports NFC and tap-and-pay payments* via UPI, credit and debit cards. Jio is also offering a detached JioCable accessory which can be used to connect to with any regular TVs and stream content directly from pre-loaded JioApps.
Pricing and JioPhone Data Plans
In terms of pricing, the JioPhone is ‘effectively free’; however, Reliance is charging a full refundable security deposit of Rs. 1,500 to avoid misuse. The refund is subject to the return the phone and can be triggered after three (3) years of usage.
Exclusive mobile data plans for the device start at Rs 24 and goes up to Rs 153. The plans offer daily unlimited data and unlimited calls (local and national). There are reports that the so-called *unlimited data is subject to daily Fair Usage Policy (FUP) limit which is benchmarked at 500MB.
The JioTV data pack starts at Rs 309 and offers daily unlimited voice calls (local and national) and 1GB data to stream content.
Availalbility
The public beta testing of the JioPhone starts from August 15. Pre-bookings will open officially on August 24 and the phone will go on sale in the month of September. Interested users can register their interest on Jio’s website (Jio.com) or visit a nearby Jio Store.
I heard the SIM slot is locked to Jio nework only and other Data Plans from JIO will not work for it.