A month after the Diwali cashback offer, Reliance Jio cashbacks made a comeback this week – with a lot more benefits than before. The company is offering cashback and vouchers worth up to Rs. 2,599 on recharges of Rs. 399 and more, with greater benefits for new users than existing customers. Of course, you need to buy the Rs. 99 Prime subscription to become eligible for the freebies. Jio will give vouchers worth Rs. 400 (eight vouchers of Rs. 50), wallet cashback, and discounts on Ajio.com, Reliancetrends.com, and Yatra.com. The offer started on Friday, November 10 and will be up for grabs till November 25.
Jio rival Airtel was also in the news this week for updating its Rs. 349 prepaid plan to offer 50 percent more data. Buyers will now get 1.5GB data per day with the Rs. 349 pack instead of the daily 1GB; the other details, such as the 28-day validity and unlimited calls, remain the same. The operator also launched a Rs. 448 plan with 1GB data per day, unlimited local and STD calls, and 3,000mAh battery for 70 days.
Airtel broadband subscribers will now be able to use leftover data from one billing cycle in the next one as operator has expanded its Data Rollover facility. Users will be able to accumulate up to 1,000GB data, but they stand to lose all the leftover data if they move to a plan of lower value. Notably, this facility is not available with all plans, and the select plans will vary from circle to circle. Vodafone also introduced the data rollover facility for its postpaid users (up to 200GB) this week, but only for the newly released RED Traveller, RED International, and RED Signature offerings. These plans come with free national roaming, up to 12-month free Netflix access, free Vodafone PLAY access (for movies, live TV), free Magzter access, and RED Shield theft and damage protection.
E-commerce major Flipkart announced its first smartphone under the Billion brand, named Billion Capture+. Going on sale on November 15, the Billion Capture+ smartphone has dual rear cameras (13-megapixel RGB + 13-megapixel monochrome) with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, and dual-tone flash. The smartphone sports a 5.5-inch full-HD screen, runs on Android 7.1.2 Nougat operating system, is powered by the octa-core Snapdragon 625 chipset, and packs a 3500mAh battery. It will come with unlimited cloud storage, but for local storage it supports microSD cards of up to 128GB capacity. The 3GB + 32GB variant of the Flipkart Billion Capture+ costs Rs. 10,999, and the 4GB + 64GB is priced at Rs. 12,999.
The Redmi Y1 became up for purchase this week via Amazon and Mi.com, alongside the Redmi Y1 Lite. Xiaomi says it sold 150,000 units of the two handsets in under 3 minutes in the first sale, and the next sale will be held on November 15. The Redmi Y1 (Review) comes in two variants – 3GB RAM + 32GB storage at Rs. 8,999, and 4GB RAM+ 64GB storage at Rs. 10,999 – has a 5.5-inch HD screen, 16-megapixel front camera and LED selfie flash. Redmi Y1 Lite, on the other hand, has a 5-megapixel front camera without selfie flash, and is priced at Rs. 6,999.
Also on sale this week was the Oppo F5, whose 4GB RAM variant went on sale for the first time since its launch last week. The smartphone was only available via Flipkart in the first sale, and is scheduled to hit retail stores soon afterwards; the 6GB RAM variant of the phone will arrive in India in December. The Oppo F5 (Review) has a bezel-less design, 6-inch display with 18:9 aspect ratio, and 20-megapixel front camera with AI integration.
A new Nokia 5 variant was introduced this week in India, featuring 3GB of RAM. Priced at Rs. 13,499 (Rs. 1,000 higher than the 2GB RAM model), the new Nokia 5 variant will come in Matte Black and Tempered Blue colour options, and went up for on sale on Tuesday, November 7 via Flipkart. Starting November 14, it will be available to buy from select offline retail outlets as well. Apart from the extra 1GB of RAM, the new model is the same as the original one.
Also, it was revealed this week that the upcoming Moto X4 will be a Flipkart-exclusive in India. The Moto X4 is set to launch in the country on Monday, November 13 and has features such as a Google Assistant and Alexa baked in, 5.2-inch full-HD panel, Android 7.1, Snapdragon 630 chipset, 3GB of RAM, 3000mAh battery, and 12-megapixel + 8-megapixel rear camera setup.
OnePlus 5T was in the news almost every other day the past week, as the company revealed the launch date, venue, some key features, and even the India release date of the handset. The Chinese brand will be unveiling the allegedly bezel-less smartphone on November 16 in New York City, and bring it to the Indian market on November 21 via a flash sale; wider availability begins on November 28. It will not have wireless charging, the company revealed, while the price will not cross CNY 4,000 (around Rs. 39,000), CEO Pete Lau teased on social media. A recent report, citing confidential documentation from telecom carrier O2 as the source, says the OnePlus 5T price will be same as that of its predecessor.
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Delhi has been suffering from smog since early this week, and Xiaomi took this opportunity to make the Mi Air Purifier 2 a little more affordable. The air purifier became Rs. 1,000 cheaper, and now costs Rs. 8,999. The Xiaomi air purifier comes with triple layer filter fitted in a cylindrical shape for 360-degree filtering, a PET pre-filter, an EPA filter, and an activated carbon filter. Mi Air Purifier 2 comes with three modes (auto, night/ sleep, and manual) and can be controlled using the Mi Home app.
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Flipkart had a pretty busy week on the sale front as well. The e-commerce platform held two sales this week, first one just for Samsung mobile phones and the other (called Grand Gadget Days) for gadgets across brands and categories. The former started on Monday and ran for three days, while the latter commenced Wednesday and continued till Friday. JBL products were also on sale via the official Harman Audio website, with up to 70 percent off on speakers and headphones, along with MobiKwik cashbacks and MakeMyTrip discounts.
Twitter had a busy week too, as it first expanded the new 280-character limit for all its users, stopped user verifications, and then raised the character count cap for display names. Co-founder Biz Stone says longer tweets have higher engagement from other users. The limit for display names went from 20 characters to 50 characters, while the usernames (@handle) can now be up to 15-character long. The blue tick verifications were suspended by the company because though they were supposed to confirm users’ identity, the blue tick mark started being viewed as an endorsement or a sign of authority.
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