JioPhone 'India ka Smartphone' goes official

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Directore of Reliance Industries at the company's 40th Annual General Meeting (AGM) announced the highly anticipated JioPhone. It is the company's first feature phone to support VoLTE and is "Made in India".

The JioPhone will be available effectively for free at Rs. 0, but to avoid misuse, you will have to pay Rs. 1,500 as security deposit, which will be refunded after three years. The JioPhone beta testing begins August 15, and you can pre-book the handset via My Jio app or Jio Digital Stores staring August 24. Shipping will begin in the first week of September in first-come first-serve basis. 

The JioPhone will be offered with a new Dhan Dhana Dhan pack of Rs. 153 per month, that gives users unlimited voice calls, SMSes and data (FUP of 512MB per day). There's also a JioPhone TV pack priced Rs. 309, that lets you stream TV services to your TV by connecting the handset via cable. For those who can't go for monthly packs, there is two sachet plans of Rs 54 per week and Rs 24 for two days. 

The JioPhone sports 2.4-inch QVGA display, Alphanumeric keypad, 4-way navigation key and a dedicated button for torchlight. It features rear camera, microSD card slot, headphone jack and FM Radio. It also has SOS function, which can be activated by pressing 5 on the keypad to call emergency number.

It has support for 22 major Indian languages, users can speak to the handset via voice commands to call someone, reject a call, browse internet, open apps and more. It also supports NFC for tap and pay payment through UPI, credit and debit cards, which will be enabled through software update. It also comes pre-loaded with Jio's entertainment apps like Jio Music, Jio Cinema and Jio TV. 

With the new "India ka smartphone" Jio's goal is to ensure “connectivity, data affordability and device affordability” to remove digital disempowerment and the hurdles before million of Indian from accessing Internet. It plans to roll out at least five million JioPhones a week.

Kaiser Bey

Kaiser is a tech enthusiast who likes to write, read and talk about tech. He dreams of going to Mars and never come back. We hope that you find his posts on AndroGuider helpful and informative