JioPhone Next, the brainchild of both Google and Reliance Jio, is set to hit the Indian markets on Diwali, November 4.
So get ready to have an extra-special time this festive season! The JioPhone Next will cost ₹6,499 ($87), however, you can get the phone for as low as ₹1,999, if you opt for paying through EMIs.
The Easy EMI option will let you pay ₹ 1,999 initially (along with ₹501 for processing fees), and then pay the balance amount in easy EMI, which can be for either 18 or 24 months. This is the first time that a smartphone in the entry-level category will be launched with a financing option.
India may be the world’s second-largest internet market, and yet, the digital divide in the country is a big one. Digital literacy is yet another subject of which many Indians know frighteningly little, and Google and Jio have been working for more adoption of smartphones among the masses. Thus, the JioPhone Next was born. Reliance Jio has already partnered with over 30,000 retail outlets across India to ensure easy access to the JioPhone Next and introduced the digital financing option so that geographical barriers do not stand in the way of purchasing the phone.
Coming with Google Assistant, the JioPhone Next runs on Pragati OS, which is an optimized version of Android that is specifically tailored for Indian users, and which Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani feels will “empower common Indians the most and take their digital journeys to the next level,” has customized features such as Translate Now (that allows the user to have any text translated to the language of the user’s choice), Read Aloud (which allows the user to have on-screen content read out to them, allowing him or her to listen to the content in a language they can understand), support for 10 Indian languages, and Jio apps.
Coming with an accelerometer, light sensor, proximity sensor, and automatic software upgrades, the JioPhone Next features a 5.45-inch HD+ (720×1,440 pixels) display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection and an anti-fingerprint coating. Powered by the 1.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 215 quad-core processor, it comes with a 3, 500 mAH battery, 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage that is expandable up to 512GB. As for the connectivity, it has a Micro-USB port, 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth v4.1, Wi-Fi, and dual-SIM (Nano) slots.
Coming to the cameras, the dual-SIM smartphone has a 13-megapixel rear camera, which has several modes such as portrait mode, night mode, and preloaded custom India-augmented reality filters. It also has an 8-megapixel selfie camera.
