At its 41st Annual General Meeting yesterday, Reliance Jio announced its second generation ‘smart’ feature phone, the JioPhone 2. The original JioPhone was an instant success in the market, taking over the feature phones segment in no time.
The new JioPhone 2 has a number of hardware improvements and additional software features, which definitely make it an attractive option for those who don’t want a full-fledged smartphone, but also want 4G connectivity on the go. We wanted to take a closer look at all the improvements and here they are:
QWERTY Keypad
First things first, the JioPhone 2 ditches the very feature phone-like, boxy design of the original JioPhone in favor of a wider and curvier build, thanks to a QWERTY keyboard which replaces the T9 keyboard on its predecessor. The JioPhone 2, however, retains the four-navigation keys with a dedicated voice command button at the center of the navigation buttons to summon the Hello Jio voice assistant.
Updated Design
The JioPhone 2 features a 2.4-inch display of QVGA (320×240) resolution, which is the same as the original JioPhone, albeit with a landscape orientation, like Nokia N series phones and old BlackBerry models. Overall, it does look more modern and actually makes a whole lot of sense if you are using JioPhone primarily for messaging and video calling.
Plenty of Storage
Despite not being an Android phone, the JioPhone 2 has plenty of potential storage space for your music, videos and other files. The smart feature phone is powered by a 1.2Ghz dual-core processor paired with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. Thanks to the microSD card slot, you can add an additional 128GB of storage, which is plenty for most use cases.
Video calls
The device features a 2MP rear camera and 0.3MP VGA front-facing camera, and expecting great quality videos and photos is out of the question. However, it’s more than enough to click photos to share on WhatsApp or for video calls. Thanks to Jio’s VoLTE support video calls will be free for users beyond the prepaid plan they have selected. The JioPhone 2 is powered by a 2,000mAh battery, which is claimed to provide a standby time of 360 hours.
Connectivity
The dual-SIM device has support for VoLTE, as well as LTE Cat.4 (150 Mbps download, 50 Mbps upload), as well as 2G support on 900 and 1,800MHz frequencies. VoWi-Fi, which allows users to make calls over WiFi is also on the table. Other connectivity options include FM, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy, GPS as well as NFC, which might facilitate mobile payments in the future.
Software Features
The JioPhone 2 boots KaiOS, a platform developed specifically for ‘smart’ feature phones such as the JioPhone and Nokia’s 8110 ‘Matrix Phone, and comes preloaded with apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube alongside Jio’s proprietary apps. The JioPhone 2 has support for 24 Indian languages and will have a dedicated app store.
The JioPhone will be available starting August 15 at an introductory price of just Rs. 2,999 and will also come bundled with exciting launch offers.
