Update 20/10/2022: The Reliance JioBook laptop has now been launched for everyone to purchase via Reliance Digital for Rs 15,799. With major bank credit cards including Axis, Kotak, ICICI, HDFC, AU, INDUSIND, DBS, Yes, and others, customers purchasing the laptop can get a 10% instant discount.
Reliance Jio has finally launched its first affordable laptop in India, called JioBook, reports about which started to surface in early 2021. The new affordable laptop from Jio has a price tag below Rs 20,000 and comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor under the hood. However, the USP of the laptop is the inbuilt 4G LTE support. But is it worth it? Let’s try to analyse.
Before that, let’s talk about the price of Reliance JioBook. The JioBook laptop comes at a price of Rs 19,500 and is on sale via the Government e-Marketplace (GeM). The laptop is only available for purchase by government department employees as of now. Rumours state this could change soon and the laptop should become available for everyone by Diwali.
Reliance JioBook: Specifications
The Reliance JioBook laptop, when it becomes available for everyone, should presumably attract a lot of customers because of its affordable price tag. The device sports an 11.6-inch TN display with an HD resolution of 1366×768 pixels. The laptop is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 Chipset paired with the Adreno 610GPU. There’s 2GB of LPDDR4X RAM and the listing reveals it has 32GB of onboard storage. The laptop seems to run on JioOS.
Then there’s a dual speaker setup along with dual microphones and a two-in-one combo post for the headset. As for connectivity options, the laptop features a USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.0 port, and an HDMI port. It also has support for Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, and features a Micro SD card slot. The highlighting feature of the laptop is integrated 4G LTE functionality.
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Reliance JioBook: Value for money?
Talking about its value, let’s see first what the competition is offering. First, if you are a student and do not want a Windows laptop at this price, you can get a Chromebook. A Chromebook can get your basics done without any issues, such as writing notes playing basic games, and moreover, if you have an Android smartphone, things get even sweeter because of seamless sync between the two devices.
You can take a look at the HP Chromebook 11a. It sports an 11.6-inch HD IPS touch display with 220 nits of brightness, 1366 x 768 pixels resolution, 45 percent colour gamut, and a 73.8 percent screen-to-body ratio. As mentioned before, the machine is powered by the MediaTek MT8183 octa-core processor paired with up to 4GB RAM, 64GB of storage, and 100 GB of Cloud Storage with Google One. It also supports 256GB of expandable storage as well.
The laptop runs on ChromeOS, where you can also get access to Google Play Store apps. The HP Chromebook 11a weighs in at just 1.05 kg and is backed by a 37 WHr Li-Ion polymer battery that claims to offer a battery life of up to 16 hours. Connectivity options include a USB Type-A port and USB Type-C port, an Audio Jack and a microSD slot along with Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 5. The laptop measures 285×192.8×16.8mm. Additional features include an HP TrueVision HD webcam, built-in Google Assistant support, and one-year Google One subscription.
Now there are a lot of advantages this laptop has over JioBook, such as higher RAM, more Storage, 100GB cloud storage free for 1 year, and of course, better sync with Android devices. The best part? It costs cheaper than JioBook, for Rs 16,990. However, you would have to be ready to use a Chromebook if you are buying this HP laptop. If you have any questions regarding Chromebooks, take a look at our FAQ.
The Windows Alternative
There aren’t a lot of Windows alternatives at this price but we do have the Lenovo IdeaPad D330. It sports a 10.1-inches LED display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It is an anti-glare screen that can be detached as well. This allows you to use it as a tablet because its a touchscreen. Moreover, the touchscreen is a major advantage over a regular form factor because it makes it easy to use the laptop anywhere and in any position.
It gets up to 6 hours of battery life and is powered by an Intel Celeron N4020 CPU, paired with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB eMMC storage. Again, the RAM and storage amounts are higher than JioBook, making it a good alternative to Reliance’s offering. There’s stereo speakers, 2MP front camera, 5MP back camera, while connectivity options include 2x USB 2.0, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, 1x Headphone/microphone combo jack (3.5mm) 1x Pogo PIN dock connector, Wifi 5 11ac and Bluetooth 4.2. All these specifications make the Lenovo IdeaPad D330 a great alternative for Rs 17,990.
What you do lose out on, with both the HP Chromebook and the Lenovo laptop, is the inbuilt 4G LTE support. So if that is a deal breaker for you, you may wait for the Reliance JioBook laptop to arrive for all consumers.