After conquering the telecom and feature phone segments, Reliance Jio seems to be setting its eyes on India's laptop market. A new report by XDA Developers claims that Reliance Jio is working on a low-cost 4G LTE-enabled laptop called JioBook. According to the firmware reviewed by the publication, Jio is reportedly developing a laptop running a forked version of Android. Months after the JioPhone launch in 2017, Jio revealed that it is closely working with Qualcomm for a cheap 4G laptop. It has been close to three years since this information came out and the first product between both the parties could arrive soon. That said, the JioBook leaked online was running on Snapdragon 665 Mobile Platform. Furthermore, the report also claimed that Jio is taking the help of Bluebank Communication Technology based out of China to manufacture the JioBook. Here's everything we know about the JioBook.
What to Expect from JioBook?
Reliance Jio is closely working with Google to develop a low-cost 4G Android smartphone. This device will likely hit the market anytime in Q2 2021. Now, apart from the 4G smartphones, India's biggest telco seems to be working with Qualcomm to develop an affordable laptop. The firmware accessed by XDA says the laptop will be named 'JioBook.' It will run a forked version of Android 10, and Jio will be naming it as 'JioOS.' Reliance Jio was one of the early adopters of KaiOS. Both generations of JioPhones are powered by KaiOS itself.
That said, when we talk about laptops, the obvious thing that comes into our mind is Windows 10, but we are talking about Jio's product, so obviously, the company will be having a different strategy to tap the market. Ironically, the leaked image of JioBook's keyboard has a 'Windows' logo, but there are heavy chances of it being swapped with a different key.
Other leaked specifications of JioBook include Snapdragon 665 SoC with Snapdragon X12 modem, a screen with 1366×768 pixel resolution, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC 5.1 storage. Right now, Windows 10 does not support Snapdragon 662, which could be the reason behind Jio opting for a different operating system. But it will be interesting to see how this JioOS-powered laptop runs in real life.
The JioBook is expected to come in different configurations- 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM+32GB of eMMC storage and 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM+64GB of eMMC 5.1 storage. The report also says the unfinished product has several Jio and Microsoft apps preinstalled, such as JioStore, JioMeet, JioPages, Microsoft Edge, Office and Teams.
The name JioBook also seems to fit the bill and the company's other products and services like JioPhone, JioMeet, JioTV and so on. As of this writing, Reliance Jio did not respond to this leak. Reliance Jio might be aiming at capturing the tablet market in India. For example, Lenovo, in collaboration with the Indian government, is selling a lot of tablets every quarter in the educational sector. What if Reliance Jio delivers a laptop with basic specifications at the price of a tablet that Lenovo is selling?
And COVID-19 has proved that online learning is possible, so we will be seeing a lot of educational institutions shift to complete remote learning in the coming years. With that said, Reliance JioBook might go official in the second quarter of 2021 alongside the heavily rumoured affordable Jio 4G smartphones powered by Android. What are your thoughts on Jio making a low-cost 4G laptop? Let us know in the comments section below.
