Reliance JioPhone delivery will complete before Diwali, company reaffirms

After recovering from initial hiccups, Reliance Jio has started delivering its flagship feature handset JioPhone in India.

Reliance commenced JioPhone registration on August 24 and was supposed to start shipping the phones in early September. But it couldn't, due to overwhelming demand. To put in perspective, it received more than six million order requests. Even the Expression Of Interest (EOI) registration on the official site has crossed well over 10 million.

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Unable to handle the flood of requests, the company had delayed the delivery for a few days, leading many assume that the JioPhone might not reach the customers in October.

In mid-September, Reliance Jio finally commenced delivering the stocks to local retail shops, where the consumers, who booked early in August would be able to grab their JioPhone. It even started dedicated webpage and SMS service so that customers can track the real-time delivery status.

However, many are still to get any notification to their mobile number and some took to Twitter to contact official customer care handle: Jio Care for an update on JioPhone delivery status.

The company, in series of tweets (see below) has officially confirmed that it was carrying out the delivery of JioPhone in phases and also promised to ship all units before Diwali, meaning consumers will be get their JioPhone before October 18. Interested users can call toll-free number: 1800 890 8900 to get status on delivery.

Reliance JioPhone: Features and data tariff plans

Reliance JioPhone might appear as an ordinary keypad feature-handset, but it has a lot more than what meets the eye.  

The new JioPhone is the first feature-phone to support 4G-VoLTE (Voice-over-LTE) thus guaranteeing superior connectivity with high quality voice-call and it also can take voice-commands to perform tasks, which no other rival phone can boast off.

It also comes with special TV cable (have to buy separately) that can mirror media content (such as JioCinema, JioMusic, JioTV, and JioXpressNews and more) on any television sets like LED/LCD/ non-smart TVs) even the old generation CRT monitors.

Besides, it would support 22 regional dialects. It also comes with a panic button (to trigger SOS for support) and NFC (Near Field Communication) support for cash-less payment, as well.

[Note: NFC feature for contact-less payment will be activated with software update later in the year]

As far as the hardware is concerned, Reliance JioPhone sports a 2.4-inch QVGA display with physical keypad, 1.2GHz dual-core processor (Qualcomm/Spreadtrum), 4GB inbuilt storage (expandable up to 128GB), 512MB of RAM, KAI OS, a 2000mAh battery, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, torch light and a FM radio receiver.

Another advantage of owning the JioPhone is its price-tag and the affordable tariff plan it entails. The feature phone, which comes with a single-SIM (compatible with Reliance Jio only) can be purchased off-the-shelf with a refundable (after 36 months) payment of Rs 1,500. The company is also offering exclusive tariffs, which include unlimited voice calls, SMS, data and access to MyJio apps.

With the base plan (Rs.153), users get free data with 500MB daily cap and the higher tariff comes with 1GB data per day cap for 28 days. The Rs 309 plan users can take advantage of JioPhone TV cable to mirror content on any television and enjoy the entertainment content on the go.

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