iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus pre-booking in India will run till September 29, and come with a new Jio plan
iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus pre-bookings in India have opened, with both offline stores and online retailers providing deals to lure customers. Pre-bookings for the two iPhone 8 models will continue till September 29, the day the shipping begins. Reliance Jio is joining in the action too, and will be taking pre-orders for the handsets via its Jio Stores, Jio.com website, and Reliance Digital large-format stores. To make the deal sweeter for the buyers, iPhone 8 pre-bookings from Jio channels will include several offers, such as cashbacks, buyback guarantee, and an exclusive plan with 90GB of 4G data per month. Check out the details of the offers below:
Consumers who pre-book iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus between September 22 and September 29 will be eligible for Rs. 10,000 cashback on the purchase. In order to claim the offer, they will need to make the purchase via Citibank credit card. This will bring down the effective price of the base 64GB iPhone 8 model to Rs. 54,000, while the 256GB model will drop to Rs. 67,000. Similarly, the effective prices of the 64GB and 256GB iPhone 8 Plus will become Rs. 63,000 and Rs. 76,000, respectively.
Apart from the cashback, consumers who purchase the new iPhone 8 models from Reliance Digital, Jio.com, Jio Store, and MyJio app will also get 70 percent cashback if they return the handset after a year. You need to install the MyJio app on the phone to claim the offer, and use a Jio SIM card for a year before you hand it over at a Reliance Digital store. The buyback guarantee will entitle you to 70 percent of the value of the iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus you buy, minus the taxes applied.
So someone who bought the iPhone 8 Plus 256GB for its full price of Rs. 86,000, the buyback will be calculated at Rs. 75,680 - Rs. 10,320 will not be considered for the cashback because of 12 percent GST. So you will get back Rs. 52,976 in the form of vouchers that can be used to upgrade to the next iPhone or purchase goods at the Reliance Digital; the voucher should be used within 6 months or it will expire.
Jio will also launch an exclusive tariff plan for the two Apple smartphones. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus buyers can opt for the upcoming Rs. 799 plan that provides 90GB of data, free SMSes, subscription to Jio apps, and free calls. The validity of the plan is 28 days for prepaid users, and one billing cycle for postpaid users.
The iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus offer incremental improvements over the last year's iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models. They very much retain the same form factor and design, but there are a few noticeable changes including new colour options - Silver, Space Gray, and Gold Finish, improved display, 25 percent louder speakers, as well as glass front and back. Both the new iPhone models also support Qi wireless inductive charging, allowing people charge the iPhone without having to plug in a cable again, Phil Schiller, Apple's Vice President of Worldwide Marketing said.
Apple's iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are powered by A11 Bionic SoC six-core processors and improved GPU, which is 30 percent more efficient than the GPUs in last year's models. The new SoC and GPU are able to perform complex tasks such as video encoding at much faster rate.
iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus also come with improved cameras, Apple said, adding that photos now have better detail, texture even as the iPhone 8 continues to have 12-megapixel camera, and the iPhone 8 Plus a duo of 12-megapixel camera sensors. Among other new capabilities, both the new iPhone models can shoot 1080p videos in 240 frames per second.
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