Earlier this month, it was reported that India's leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel is looking to launch an affordable 4G VoLTE smartphone around Diwali this year. And a new report now says that Airtel will launch the device in the first week of October, in-line with earlier rumours.
As per a report from 91mobiles, Bharti Airtel will launch the device in the first week of October before Diwali itself. It is now said that the device will be priced below Rs. 2000, contrary to the earlier price tag of Rs. 2,500.
Airtel is considering this move to counterattack Reliance Jio and its affordable & smartest feature phone JioPhone. While Jio launched a feature phone aiming to attract the current feature phone users, Airtel is considering a different approach and will launch a smartphone itself. This could be a good move, but again, it entirely depends on the smartphone's price tag.
So, Airtel's approach is different here. The operator is partnering with a smartphone manufacturer for the affordable 4G VoLTE smartphone, and Airtel's part would be to co-brand the smartphone and offer attractive bundled tariff plans. One of the primary highlights of the JioPhone is its Rs. 153 tariff plan and Airtel will be looking to launch a similar tariff plan, whose details are unknown at the moment.
Furthermore, we recently reported the specifications of the smartphone. The so-called Airtel 4G VoLTE smartphone will flaunt a 4-inch FWVGA display, and will be powered by a quad-core processor. The device will sport 1GB of RAM and may have 8GB of internal storage. There might be a microSD slot for storage expansion.
Our sources earlier confirmed that the device will run Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the-box and comes with dual camera support (front and back). Of course, it will be a dual-SIM supported smartphone, which also has 4G LTE and VoLTE calling support. This entire package will be backed by a 1400-1600mAh battery. The smartphone will come preloaded with FM Radio application.
