Airtel finally launches its first 4G LTE smartphone with Karbonn A40 Indian today to compete with Reliance Jio’s JioPhone which was launched in August.The Airtel 4G LTE smartphone or Karbonn A40 Indian is priced at Rs.2899/- (Rs.3499/- is the MRP for the device) as a downpayment and user has to recharge Rs.169/ continuously for 36 months. After 18 months, Rs.500/- will be deposited to user Airtel payment Bank account and remaining Rs.1000/- will be deposited after completion of three years and you can keep the mobile phone with you forever whereas JioPhone offer which is priced effectively at Rs.0/- and has to do a security deposit of Rs.1500/- which the user will get back after three years from the date of purchase once the device returns back to Jio.
As per Airtel, if user not interested to do recharge of Rs.169/- pack then he is free to do any other plan recharge but one must do minium of Rs.3000 within first 18 months to be eligible for Rs.500/- cashback and another Rs.3000 for next 18 months to receive the remaining cashback of Rs.1000/- after 36 months.So if we calculate you will get Rs.1500/- cashback after three years and the device will effectively cost you Rs.1399/-.But you have to spend a minimum of Rs.6000/- on recharge to be eligible for cashback.
Airtel has launched a special pack with Rs.169/- specifically for the Karbonn A40 Indian.The user will get unlimited local and STD calls with 512MB data per day.The Rs.169/- pack is valid for 28 days.For regular Airtel user, it is valid for 14 days without the need to buy the device.
Now coming to the specification of the Karbonn A40 Indian smartphone is completely made out of plastic and it weighs 118 grams and is 10.5 mm thick.Karbonn A40 Indian sports a 4 inches WVGA display having a resolution of 840 x 480p.It is powered by 1.3 GHz processor coupled with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage which can be expanded via microSD card slot up to 32GB.
It has a 2MP rear camera with LED flash and 0.3 MP selfie camera.The connectivity options include Dual SIM 4G LTE with VoLTE also support 2G and 3G bands, Wifi, Bluetooth, A-GPS and micro USB port.All this is fueled with 1300 mAh battery and device runs on Android N out of the box.The Karbonn A40 Indian will also have support for 22 Indian regional languages and will come pre-installed with Airtel apps like My Airtel, Wynk, and Airtel TV.The Karbonn A40 Indian will be available in four colors with Blue, Coffee Brown, Champagne, and Black.The device is not SIM locked and can use any other SIM apart from Airtel SIM, unlike the JioPhone which is SIM locked and single SIM device.
So would you buy the Airtel 4G Smartphone over the Reliance Jio JioPhone? Do leave your suggestion in the comment section below.
