Reliance Jio’s newly unveiled qwerty handset Jiophone 2, priced at Rs 2,999, has caused much excitement due to two reasons.
First, it’s probably the only phone in India to come with both 4G support as well as a QWERTY keypad in the sub-20,000-rupee price bracket.
Before Jiophone 2, one would have had to go for a device like a Blackberry — costing Rs 35,000 and above — to get a hold of such a phone.
However, the specifications of the Jiophone 2 suggests that it’s not meant to compete with the average Android device.
The Android device market is currently clustered around the Rs 10,000 mark, at which point you get a full-HD display, 4 GB of RAM and an above-average octa-core processor.
However, the specifications of the Jiophone are much more modest, starting with the display itself.
The 2.4-inch display has a resolution of only 320 * 240 pixels, or about 77,000 pixels in all. This is just 7.7% of a full HD resolution (1 mln pixels).
Similarly, RAM is only 512 MB, and onboard storage memory, including the OS, is only 4GB.
However, it will support SD cards of up to 128 GB, and comes with 2 MP cameras on the front and the back.
Battery is average at 2 Ah.
As expected, it does come with full support for Jio’s 4G (minus carrier aggregation), including VoLTE and WoWiFi.
JioPhone 2 specifications also reveal the presence of FM radio, Bluetooth (with support for low-energy mode), NFS and GPS.
In other words, Jiophone2 continues in the path laid down by its smaller cousin — and is primarily aimed at a customer who is looking for something cheap and affordable.
That said, the phone could appeal to those who do a lot of typing and would love to use a dedicated, physical keypad for the same.
The addition of WhatsApp, Youtube and Facebook makes it a very good deal for people who communicate more with their fingertips than with their mouth. But for those looking for a truly decent and affordable smartphone with a QWERTY keypad, the wait shall continue.