Reliance Jio took India by storm when it announced the Jio Phone at its Annual General Meeting[1] earlier this year. The most exciting thing about this 4G & VoLTE-enabled feature phone is that it is effectively free, because you only need to pay a deposit of Rs. 1,500 which can be returned to you after three years. Reliance opened pre-bookings of the Jio Phone[2] back in August, with deliveries set to start from September 21. We finally managed to get our hands on a Jio Phone[3] and here are our first impressions.
After reviewing lots of smartphones, the Jio Phone feels completely different. It is a feature phone and is built like a standard candybar with a small screen and numeric keypad. It is small and very comfortable to hold; your thumb can reach all corners of the keypad without the need to stretch. Considering its price, we must say that this phone feels well-built. The quality of plastic used is good and the rubber buttons offer good clicky feedback.
The screen measures 2.4 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 240x320 pixels. Below the screen are two function buttons, a big D-pad with a button in the centre, call and disconnect buttons, and the number pad. At the back, there's a 2-megapixel camera and a loudspeaker. There's also a VGA camera in the front. The Jio Phone has a Micro-USB port for charging, and comes with a charger that has a fixed USB cable. It also has a 3.5mm headphone socket. The back cover of the Jio Phone can come off to reveal the removable 2000mAh battery. There's a Nano-SIM slot and a microSD card slot that accepts cards of up to 128GB.
With the Jio Phone...