JioPhone Next to rollout ahead of Diwali, currently in advanced trial stage

The JioPhone Next will not be rolled out on Friday, 10 September. Instead, the affordable smartphone will be available to buy before the festival of Diwali, which will take place on 4 November. Previously, Reliance had scheduled the rollout of the JioPhone Next on yet another festival called Ganesh Chaturthi. 

In the latest press release, the company said that the JioPhone Next is in the advanced trial stage and will be launched before Diwali. The delay in the final announcement of JioPhone Next price and availability of the JioPhone might be caused due to the global chip shortage, which is making it hard for manufacturers to keep up with the demands of growing markets. 

JioPhone Next rollout will take place before Diwali

The smartphone is being developed by Reliance Jio, the Indian telecommunication giant with Alphabet-owned Google. Targeting 300 million potential customers in India who are using feature phones, the JioPhone Next is being called the "most affordable smartphone" by Reliance Jio. The collective expertise of Reliance and Google will bring a lot of useful features to the smartphone, such as the usability of the Android operating system and the cost-efficiency of Jio. 

In the press release, the firms stated that "Both companies have begun testing the JioPhone Next with a limited set of users for further refinement and are actively working to make it available more widely in time for the Diwali festive season. This additional time will also help mitigate the current industry-wide, global semiconductor shortage." Reliance and Google entered into a deal back in 2020, wherein the search giant Google invested a whopping 33,737 crores to gain a 7.73% stake in Jio Platforms.

JioPhone Next features 

The JioPhone Next will come with deep integration of Google Voice Assistant, due to which the smartphone also has automatic read-aloud of screen text language translation. The camera on the smartphone, which is rumoured to be a 13MP shooter, will support augmented reality filters. The smartphone will support multiple Indian regional languages. According to leaks and rumours, the JioPhone Next will come with a Qualcomm QM215 SoC, along with 2 or 3 GB of RAM and either 16 or 32GB of internal storage. The device might run on Android 11 out of the box and will feature a 5.5" HD display.