Reliance Jio has resumed selling the JioPhone (review). The smart feature phone that created ripples in the feature phone market will be made available to 10 million more customers who had pre-booked the phone but couldn’t get it delivered because of supply constraints.
According to a report by Economic Times, Reliance Jio sent messages with a link attached to buy the phone to those who pre-booked it. The link has a code which the customer needs to show at the nearest Jio outlet to get the JioPhone.
Jio’s mass-market feature phone is practically being sold for free as the Rs 1,500 price tag of the phone is refundable after three years of the customer returns the phone. Additionally, customers who return the phone within 12 to 24 months receives Rs 500 while those returning back in 24 to 36 months gets a refund of Rs 1,000.
JioPhone offers free voice calls along with 0.5GB of internet per day along with unlimited SMS for Rs 153 a month. The phone runs on a forked version of Firefox OS called KaiOS and comes with features like voice control and Jio’s suite of apps.
There are two variants of the phone, one powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 205 SoC and another an undisclosed Spreadtrum processor. Both variants have 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. The JioPhone also comes with a 2-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front camera. The phone is powered by 2,000mAh and uses a micro-USB port to charge.
However, since the time JioPhone launched, Airtel and Vodafone has come out with their own 4G feature phone offerings making the market more competitive than ever before. Airtel came out with a 4G feature phone in partnership with Karbonn for Rs 2,000 while Vodafone tied up with Micromax to bring out a Rs 999 offering.
The JioPhone was announced in July while pre-orders opened from 24th August when the phone registered an overwhelming demand. which led to deliveries being pushed to as late as October.