JioPhone 2 Launched with Bigger Screen and QWERTY Keypad for Rs. 2,999

Reliance Jio, after causing a disruption in the Indian telecom industry by providing 4G connections for extremely affordable prices, launched the JioPhone last year, which was touted to be ‘India ka Smartphone’ which was effectively free of cost, and promised to connect those users to the internet who could not afford a full-fledged smartphone. While the JioPhone was basically a feature phone with 4G LTE connectivity, an iteration of the device, the JioPhone 2 has been launched today with a full-fledged QWERTY keypad and a larger display to help with better media consumption, and also with the availability of apps like Whatsapp, Facebook and YouTube on the JioPhone.

The new JioPhone comes with the much awaited Dual SIM functionality, as the gripe with the first edition was that it was a single SIM device, which was carrier locked to Jio, which meant users could not use their already existing SIM cards on their JioPhones, which now seems to be addressed. JioPhone 2 also sports a larger 2.4-inch QVGA display, a battery capacity of 2000mAh, and SD card slot with support for up to 128GB, a 2MP rear as well as a VGA front camera, 512MB of RAM coupled with 4GB of internal storage, and will have support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, GPS, NFC and of course, VoLTE as well as VoWiFi. The JioPhone 2, like its predecessor, will run on Kai OS.

The only major upgrades compared to the first-gen JioPhone seems to be in terms of the display size as well as the QWERTY keyboard, while the rest of the specs seem to be more or less similar to the original JioPhone.

The JioPhone 2 will be sold for Rs. 2,999 and will be available from 15 August 2018 in Jio retail outlets. Also, existing feature phone users can upgrade to the JioPhone through a ‘monoon hungama offer’ just by paying Rs. 501.