JioPhone 2 vs JioPhone: How Reliance Jio's 4G VoLTE feature phones stack up

Both the JioPhone 2 and JioPhone would now support social media and instant messaging apps -- Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp

Reliance Jio, a Mukesh Ambani-owned telecommunication service provider, on Thursday announced the JioPhone 2, a Blackberry-inspired 4G VoLTE-enabled feature phone with full QWERTY keyboard and a horizontal 2.4-inch screen. The phone will be available at an introductory price of Rs 2,999 from August 15 onwards. Along with the launch of the JioPhone 2, the company also announced the JioPhone Monsoon Hungama offer in which the company is offering the first iteration of JioPhone in exchange of any other feature phone at an effective price of Rs 501.

Here is how the JioPhone and JioPhone 2 stack up:

Screen

Both the JioPhone and JioPhone 2 sport a 2.4-inch screen, but in different orientation. The screen in JioPhone is set at vertical orientation, in line with other feature phones. The screen in the JioPhone 2, on the other hand, is set to horizontal orientation, which makes it wide and convenient for watching multimedia content.

Keyboard

While the JioPhone features an alpha-numeric keyboard with 4-way navigation keys, the JioPhone 2 features a full QWERTY keyboard with 4-way navigation key and a dedicated key for voice commands.

Operating system

Both the feature phones run on Kai OS, but the JioPhone 2 would come pre-installed with social media and instant messaging apps -- Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp – whereas the apps would be added to JioPhone sometime later as a software upgrade or side-loaded apps.
 

Here are other common features of the phones

High definition voice calls

Both the feature phones support VoLTE call feature, which allows voice calls using data packets, therefore allows high definition voice calls.

Voice commands

The phones can be operated using voice commands. The voice command feature is not limited to calling and messages, but also to operate the phone's apps – music playback, YouTube and video playback, etc.

Near Field Communication (NFC)

The phones come equipped with the NFC chip, which would support digital payments service in future. With NFC technology, users would also be able to make digital transactions through their Jan Dhan account, bank accounts and Jio money app.