How many times do you use the words “cheap” and “truly smart” on the same sentence?  At long last we have  a smartphone  which can match that description perfectly. The launch of Huawei IDEOS could possibly mark the beginning of a new revolution on the phone industry in Kenya. The dawn of smartphones to the common man and woman. Mmmh common man or woman! that actually takes us back to the rotten social class  but at the end it is the reality.   Money is everything when comes to buying anything in Kenya and that means the selling point of any product lies on the pricing, particularly when targeting the mass market.  At Ksh.8500 Huawei Ideos is aimed at the budget end of the smartphone  and could be perfect for the market. The prices of the most smartphones in Kenya are way above majority of people and that is why it will be interesting to watch how the newly launched IDEOS phone fair in the market.  I got the sense earlier on that quite a number of people are eager to get hold of the phone or somehow as a  matter of curiosity are talking about it.

So what is the big deal with this phone?

Ideos runs on  Android 2.2 Froyo, the latest version of Google’s operating system.  Now you get it, to the tech savvy community, this is the biggest selling point.   Google is all over this and that means smooth support for Gmail, Google Maps, email and more than 60 Android apps according to Peter Arina of Safaricom.  For the social media addicts, there  is Facebook app and great twitter clients.  The debate about the different phone operating systems is a story for another day but many people I have talked to agree that Android at the moment is almost  leading the pack if not yet.

Camera…not that bad, 3.2 megapixels, with no LED photo light but again do you care that much? Anyway I used the phone to take  one of the beautiful models at the launch and she protested the quality of the pic and so you wouldn’t see that one here.

What else?  The latest 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, HSPA for fast Web surfing over 3G, and a capacitive, 2.8-inch touchscreen. As we know it for now  Safaricom  is the only mobile operator with the real 3G in Kenya , others are planning, fixing the date or doing whatever else. Kama ulihama kabisa utangoja.

Colors:  I am color blind but according to what i have not seen , it is available in four colors  (yellow, blue, black and purple). See the display below and tell me which colors are those:

and

Price.. I have already talked about this but there is one more thing..did you know that Ideos is cheaper in Kenya than in Europe? May be not relevant but now you know thanks

By the way Mr. Ndemo the PS  for Communication and Technology was in the house . He gave one telling stats about Kenya internet use in the last one year. According to him about a year ago there were 3 million internet users in Kenya and that increased to about 7.5 million users now. The following is Mr.Ndemo speaking during the launch.

More pics here