Realme’s sub-brand Dizo has launched its first feature phones in India.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Realme’s sub-brand Dizo has launched its first feature phones in India.
- Dizo has launched the Star 500 and Star 300 feature phones.
- Dizo’s new feature phones start at Rs 1,299 and will be available on Flipkart.
Realme’s sub-brand Dizo on Monday launched its first feature phones in India, marking the company’s foray into the low-cost feature phone market. The two phones, Dizo Star 500 and the Dizo Star 300 bring features such as a T9 keypad, a torch, and support for Indian languages. Dizo’s new phones take on Reliance Jio’s JioPhone. The JioPhone is carrier-locked but brings 4G connectivity to feature phones, as do a wide range of phones from brands such as Nokia. Dizo, however, has only 2G connectivity on the two new phones.
According to a report by CMR Mobile Handset Market released back in February, India’s overall feature phone market saw a 2 per cent increase in shipments year-over-year and leading the market in the fourth quarter of 2020 was iTel, a brand of Transsion Holdings that also owns Tecno and Infinix smartphone brands. In the second spot was Samsung, while brands such as Lava, Micromax, and LG also managed to secure their position in the top five. JioPhone, which reignited the sales of feature phones in India back in 2018, faded in sales because customers preferred features such as loudspeakers and long battery life over things such as 4G.
Taking a cue from this market trend, Dizo’s new phones do not bring 4G onboard. The Star 500 and Star 300 phones come with dual-SIM cards and both of them support just 2G, which means you will be able to choose any mobile operator for services, except for Jio. Jio is a 4G-only network, which is why phones without 4G support cannot support it. It is also why the JioPhone exists in the first place because Jio’s network cannot be used on non-4G feature phones.
Realme Dizo Star 500 and Dizo Star 300 price
The Dizo Star 500 costs Rs 1,799 while the Dizo Star 300 price is Rs 1,299. Both the feature phones will go on sale on Flipkart soon. Dizo is yet to make a formal announcement on the sale date.
Realme Dizo Star 500 and Dizo Star 300 features, specifications
The Dizo Star 500 has a 2.8-inch non-touchscreen colour display, while the Dizo Star 300 sports a 1.77-inch colour display without touch support. The Dizo Star 500 follows a block-like design with a rectangular body with curved side edges. The Dizo Star 300, on the other hand, has a Candybar design with curved corners. Both the feature phones come with a VGA (0.3-megapixel) camera on the back and an LED flashlight. There is 32MB of RAM and 32MB of internal storage on the phones, but you can add a microSD card of up to 64GB on both of them.
The Dizo Star 500 supports Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu, among other Indian languages. Meanwhile, the Dizo Star additionally supports Punjabi and Bengali. Both phones also support English. There is support for FM radio, Bluetooth, voice recorder, file manager, music player, and alarm on both feature phones. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a Micro-USB port, as well. The Dizo Star 500 has a 1900mAh battery, while the Dizo Star 300 features a 2550mAh battery.
