Android is the most used operating system in Spain, present in phones and tablets. Although this OS will not be left alone on these devices, because a company called Jio works to also take it to laptops. This company is one of the largest telecommunications firms in India since its founding in 2016.
Already in 2018 Qualcomm confirmed to be in talks with Jio in India to bring mobile connectivity to laptops, as reported from The Economic Times. These conversations have paid off, because the Indian firm would finally be working on devices with Qualcomm components.
An Android laptop
The JioBook will be the laptop the company is going to launch, but it will not use Windows 10 as one would expect from a laptop. Instead it will use Android as the operating system, with its own fork called JiOS. The first prototype of the same makes use of a Snapdragon 665 processor, launched at the beginning of 2019 to the market. This processor has a 4G modem (Snapdragon X12) that will be the one that the laptop uses to connect to Jio’s 4G network in India.
For this development they are working with the Chinese company Bluebank Communication Technology, an engineering company that creates mobile devices and develops software for third parties. This company has previously worked on the development of products running KaiOS, the simple phone operating system. So this collaboration seems like a natural evolution for this firm.
The development of this JioBook started at the beginning of September last year and will run until the first half of 2021. You still have several phases, because the hardware for example is not ready yet definitively. In fact, the first prototype showed a Windows key on the keyboard, something that does not seem necessary considering that it will be a laptop that uses Android as the operating system. They have been able to know some of the specifications of this laptop with Android 10 that Jio will put on sale in India. These are the following:
- Screen with a resolution of 1366 × 768 pixels.
- Snapdragon 665 as a processor.
- RAM: 2/4 GB.
- Storage: 32/64 GB.
- HDMI connector.
- Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth, accelerometer.
- Operating system: Android 10.
One of the doubts so far is whether this laptop will use Google applications and services. Using them requires the manufacturer to obtain a license to distribute these mobile services from Google, which is something that costs money. This is why many manufacturers avoid this step. The laptop comes standard with a large number of the company’s own apps, such as JioStore, JioMeet, JioPages, and ad services.
What is Jio
Jio is a telecommunications company from India, which began its journey at the end of 2016 in the country. It is one of the companies that has grown the most in the country in these years, largely thanks to have brought 4G LTE connectivity to millions people in India thanks to its low cost smartphone the JioPhone.
This company has also known how to see the needs of millions of consumers in India with its products and services, such as being able to order food through WhatsApp or its own platform. The pandemic has caused millions of people in India to turn to the firm’s 4G connectivity to work, communicate or consume content.
Many Big Tech companies have seen the potential of Jio, investing large amounts of money in it, like Facebook, for example. The reason is their large number of services and products, because they seek to launch everything from set-top boxes to e-commerce and home automation. This will help make it one of the most important companies in India, having access to millions of households in the country.
The entry Android in cheap laptops? A great teleco will bet on it appears first in The Free Android.
