Ever since Reliance Group, India's largest corporate entity, entered the mobile and consumer electronics business a few years back, it has launched a series of services and products that have been disrupters. Take the case of the JioPhone or JioFiber. While the company is testing 5G network in the country, it is all set to rollout a cheap laptop as well.
Rumours were rife about the Reliance JioBook with the market expecting a formal announcement at this year's shareholders' meeting in July. However, nothing much came from the event, though soon after a rumor began that Reliance may launch the device around Diwali.
It is only now that we have some concrete information about the JioBook. Because it has made an appearance on the Geekbench listings. It is now being suggested that the device could be powered by a MediaTek MT8788 processor.
The laptop was earlier spotted on the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification website, which indicated three specific model numbers - NB1112MM, NB1118QMW, and NB1148QMW. The Geekbench listing had the first of these listed and it got a score of 1178 in single-core tests and 4246 multi-core tests.
Reliance JioBook - Cut to the chase
- What is it? A low-cost laptop
- Any variants? Likely three variants
- When is it out? Information awaited
- What does it cost? Information awaited
Reliance JioBook: Expected specifications
The JioBook may be powered by MediaTek MT8788 chipset paired with 2GB RAM. Previous leaks had spoken about a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor coupled with a Snapdragon X12 4G modem. The device is likely to run on the Android 11 operating system. There were reports that Reliance was working on its own Android-based called JioOS that could be introduced.
Readers would recall that Google is one of the global tech giants to have acquired a stake in Reliance Jio in 2020 in a spate of big ticket investments led by Meta (earlier Facebook.
Past leaks have also suggested that one of the Jiobooks variants may also come with a 1366x768 pixels resolution display. The size of the display has not been revealed so far. The 2GB RAM variant of the JioBook is said to have 32GB internal storage. Another variant of the laptop may include 4GB LPDDR4x RAM and 64GB onboard storage.
In terms of connectivity, we expect the Jiobook to include 4G LTE connectivity support, an HDMI connector, Bluetooth, and dual-band Wi-Fi. It may also come bundled with some pre-installed applications like Microsoft Teams, Edge, and Office. Apart from that, Jio can also be expected to provide in-house applications like JioStore, JioPages, and JioMeet with its new range of laptops.
Reliance JioBook: launch date and price
There were repeated rumors around the launch date in the past. Expectations were rife about the Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani coming up with a formal statement to his shareholders in their AGM in July.
Since then we have had repeated instances of the JioBook hitting the shelves but to no avail. However, since the device has now made it to Geekbench and BIS, a launch is imminent. Could it coincide with the birth anniversary of group founder Dhirubhai Ambani that falls on December 28? We will keep a close watch.
As far as the price is concerned, all we can say for now, given our experience of the company's pricing strategy on other consumer gadgets, the JioBook would debut at an affordable price.
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