Reliance JioPhone 3 is coming soon: What to expect from new smart feature phone

Reliance Jio’s next feature phone will be powered by a MediaTek chipset. The telco could launch Reliance JioPhone 3 as early as this month.

Reliance JioPhone 2 upgrade coming soon. (Reliance Jio)

Reliance Jio is expected to launch its third-generation JioPhone later this month. Reliance JioPhone 3 will reportedly be powered by a MediaTek chipset and come with support for 4G.

Reliance Jio could unveil its new feature phone at the company's upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM) on August 12. MediaTek is working with Reliance Jio and KaiOS for the next 4G feature phone, The Economic Times reported. The report added that the initial plan was for a new Reliance Lyf phone running on Google's Android Go platform.

MediaTek and Reliance Retail scrapped this plan and are currently focusing on a 4G feature phone instead. This partnership would be a change for the telco as the current JioPhones use Qualcomm and Unisoc chipsets. The upcoming JioPhone 3 would be an upgrade over the existing JioPhone 2 which retails for ₹ ₹2,999.

The 4G feature phone comes with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of ROM with a microSD card slot for storage expansion. Reliance JioPhone 2 has a 2.4-inch QVGA display, 2-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front camera. It offers connectivity options including dual SIM, 4G VoLTE, FM Radio, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The feature phone packs a 2,000mAh battery.

Going by the telco's schedule, Reliance JioPhone 3 will most likely launch at the AGM. It is also expected to announce availability details on Jio GigaFiber service. Reliance Jio GigaFiber service could debut with three data plans starting at ₹500.