On an absolute scale, this handset is quite bad:
sluggish touch screen [often you will end up tapping twice due to the lag].
poor speaker volume [quite soft in noisy areas].
battery heating is very noticeable.
no hdmi output to watch jio movies / channels on your tv.
battery drain during hotspot is almost 40-45% / hour so you must plug it in if watching video [high data consumption]
so it would be a **disappointment as your primary handset.*
since I got this as my secondary phone [redmi 2 prime is my main handset],
i’m ok with the downsides
this is the cheapest lyf as of june with 1gb ram and had a rs. 1, 500 price cut since its launch in may this year.
at the original mrp of rs. 6, 490 it was avoidable since many better 4g volte handsets are available at that price.
I just wanted the free data for 3 months [75 gb of 4g]
the value of the free data alone is about rs. 7, 500 [rs. 100 / gb minimum]
other operators charge from rs. 200-300/gb for 4g [airtel and vodafone]
speeds vary but are about 3-4x faster than 3g on average.
most buyers would benefit from free calls and sms for 3 months so you can chuck it after the promo is over if you hate it!
since I have never had unlimited data before, I over did it on the first night and consumed 3gb using it as a hotspot and airtel wifi substitute.
of course this included one time downloads like ios update and 1.5gb of free songs from the jio beats app.
my more restrained consumption is 5gb a week when I use my home wifi at night instead of 4g.
speeds vary considerably based on location.
indoor speeds are between 0.3 - 2.5 mbps near kopar khairane station and
13 mbps outdoors.
indoors in deonar is from 4 - 20 mbps depending on time of day / congestion
I plan to cancel my airtel broadband for which I pay rs. 999+ 15% tax to get 30gb at 16mb/s
and use the mobile hotspot instead with jio 4g.
if you exclude the 3 month jio offer then this handset is of course even worse than redmi 1s which I got in oct 2014.
it had a bigger screen [4.5" vs 4.7"] and double the storage [4gb vs 8gb].
better u.i. and sensitive / responsive touchscreen, better camera [5mp vs 8mp].
despite a higher price of rs. 5, 999 - **redmi 1s is overall a better phone than lyf flame 1*
i’m just using the lyf as a wifi dongle so its not as much a pain to use.
there is a bunch of usability issues with the jio apps which is not lyf related so i’ll postpone those for a different review.
= **update*
airtel begged me to not cancel and switched my to a rs. 699 plan for 16 mbps and 20gb quota but still I save rs. 300+tax monthly due to jio 4g speeds so net price for my’dongle’ handset is rs. 4 k with 75 gb data free