Reliance JioPhone Announced at an Effective Price of Rs. 0; Available for Preorder from August 24, 2017

At the Reliance Industries 40th Annual General Meeting, Mukesh Ambani, the Chairman of the company has announced the world’s most powerful feature phone. Dubbed as the JioPhone, this feature phone is aimed to make the 2G feature phone obsolete. That said, Mukesh Ambani is also calling the JioPhone as ‘India ka Intelligent SmartPhone.

 

So, the mystery is now unfolded, and Jio has officially announced the much awaited 4G VoLTE supported feature phone, but what about other details such as pricing, availability, specifications, etc. Read on to know more.

JioPhone Pricing

Let’s kick this article with the pricing aspect. The JioPhone would effectively cost Rs. 0. But to avoid misuse of the free service, the company is charging a fully refundable deposit of Rs. 1,500. The deposit will be refundable after three years.  The JioPhone is a ‘Made in India’ phone for Indian users

 

JioPhone Availability

The JioPhone will be up for preorders from August 24 and will be up for sale from September. The exact sale date and where to preorder is not yet revealed by the company. Furthermore, Mukesh Ambani quoted that they are planning to make five million units available every week. And going by these words, the device might be made available via flash sales.
In addition, the JioPhone will be available for beta testing from August 15.

JioPhone Features and Specifications

As rumoured earlier, the JioPhone comes with the same rumoured specifications. The phone supports India’s 22 regional languages and has a 2.4-inch QVGA display, along with a four-way navigation button.
The phone has support for 4G LTE & VoLTE, and the NFC connectivity will be added to the phone later this year. The company did not disclose the specifications of the phone, but it will have support for microSD card, FM Radio, rear camera, and 3.5mm headphone jack.

The rumoured key specs of the device are 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, 2000mAh battery, and 2MP VGA camera at the back. Further, all of the Jio’s applications like JioPlay, JioMusic, JioCinema, etc. comes preloaded with the phone.
Jio also announced that a customer could mirror the phone’s content onto their TV via a JioPhone TV cable. That said, this feature doesn’t require a Smart TV, and the TV Cable can be connected to any TV.

A Voice Assistant Smarter than Google Assistant and Apple Siri? 

The Reliance JioPhone comes preloaded with a digital voice assistant, and there’s a dedicated hardware button to access the voice assistant.

In the live video demo shown at the AGM, the voice assistant seems to be much smarter than the Google Assistant and Apple Siri, because it handled all the commands with aplomb. Having said that, it is detecting the voice without issues like the smartphone digital assistants. Also, what made us surprise is that the device even picked a voice command issued to play a movie trailer. The voice assistant is something we’re looking forward to.
Also, the JioPhone comes with emergency message feature. By pressing the ‘5’ key on the device, a message will be sent to the emergency contact you set up earlier in the device.

JioPhone Tariff Plans

The company has announced new tariff plans exclusively for JioPhone users. Reliance Jio Infocomm is offering completely free services including free voice, unlimited data, and apps for all the JioPhone buyers at just Rs. 153 per month. All the Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan plans can be enjoyed at just Rs. 153 with a JioPhone.

Along with the Rs. 153 plan, the operator also announced two sachet plans of Rs. 24 and Rs. 54. The Rs. 24 plan gives unlimited benefits for two days, while the Rs. 54 one offers unlimited free services for one week. Jio also promised to bring affordable plans for JioPrime members.