Jio Rs 500 4G phone images and specs leaked: What is Mukesh Ambani's game plan?
Now that Mukesh Ambani-led telecom operator, Reliance Jio has firmly established itself as a major player in the market, the company is looking at ways to achieve total market domination. With more than 100 million subscribers in its pocket, Jio has set its sights on wooing the next 100 million with its latest — the Rs 500 4G feature phone.
In a bid to add millions more from rural India to help its declining growth figures, reports suggest Jio could announce the 4G-feature phone at its annual general meeting on July 21, 2017. With the launch looking imminent, specifications and images of the phone have made their way into the internet.
Design
As per a report published in TechPP, the phone will be launched under Jio's LYF sub-brand. The leaked images reveal the upcoming phone will come with a black plastic body with a textured back. It has a candy bar design with a dual language keypad and a dedicated button for activating the phone's torchlight slotted between the buttons to receive and reject calls.
Overall, the Rs 500 phone is not a looker and its design nothing to get excited about. But to be fair, the price at which it's being offered, Jio's 4G feature phone does not even have to.
What's under the hood
Coming to the specs, the phone does not disappoint. As per the leaked details, the Rs 500 price phone offers above-par specs. Equipped with a 2.4-inch display the phone packs a dual language T9 keypad with 4-way Navkey. The report fails to mention the processor on board, but since this is a low-cost 4G phone, chances are that it may use an entry-level Snapdragon 205 SoC, which Qualcomm developed for use on cheap 4G VoLTE phones.
This unknown SoC will be paired with 512MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 128GB using a microSD card. The report claims this is a dual-SIM device, which we expect to be locked to Jio's 4G baseband so that it can help bring in new users. And lots of them.
There's a VGA camera at the front and a 2-megapixel camera at the back of the device capable of carrying out video calls. Additionally, it will also be equipped with GPS, Bluetooth 4.1 hardware and USB tethering capabilities. The package will be powered by 2000 mAh battery.
The report also claims the phone will come with an in-built Voice Assistant with support for Indian languages that can give you weather updates, solve mathematical equations et al. However, considering the expected price — Rs 500 price — such rumours of voice assistants on Reliance's feature phone should be taken with more than just a pinch of salt.
HTML support and other wonders
Interestingly, the phone will also come HTML support, which will enable it to run some apps like Jio TV and Jio Cinema. It will run Kai OS – a variant of the Firefox OS which has been heavily optimised for intensive tasks like video streaming over 4G.
The leaked images further show a dedicated app store called Kai OS Plus, which could allow users to download popular apps like Facebook and WhatsApp.