Reliance announces JioPhone Next super-affordable smartphone in partnership with Google

2021-09-16

The Indian conglomerate Reliance is launching a smartphone under its Jio Platforms subsidiary, Chairman Mukesh Ambani revealed during the annual general meeting that took place online earlier today.

The phone will be called JioPhone Next and was developed in partnership with Google, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, made a pre-recorded statement, revealing more details about the software of the smartphone.

The new JioPhone will likely arrive with Android Go, as the device was pictured with some apps like Google Camera Go, Chrome, and the Play Store. Pichai revealed his teams at Mountain View “have optimized a version of Android OS especially for this device”. It will support Android updates and will have “feature drops”, according to a press release.

Hardware-wise, we learned little about the device. We only saw it will be a device with one camera on the back, another one on the front, and physical keys on the side. Ambani revealed it will be available from September 10 and will be “the cheapest smartphone by far in India and around the world.”

Reliance revealed during the meeting the reason for such a phone is that there are still 300 million users that are stuck to 2G and they need an "extremely affordable" solution to free the country of the dated connectivity standard.

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