Read On Web → Wiko Getaway First Look And Preview

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Following the recent Terrorist attacks in Garissa, a few noble initiatives have come up such as the notforgotten.co.ke website that seeks to cherish the memories of the individuals. Makeshift, a Nailab initiative have come together and created an app called Kaa Rada with the intent of making everyone a citizen police.  The application aims to solve […]

Read On Web → Kaa Radah App Seeks To Crowdsource Security Reporting From Kenyans

At any given point in the history of humanity, a single piece of technology comes up and changes the way we view things. Think Facebook, WhatsApp, the iPhone, Tesla Motors; heck! M-pesa makes the cut too. While these pieces of technology have changed the way we communicate and travel and even manage our finances, their […]

Read On Web → I Used Tinder in Kenya. Here Is What I Think

Tecno is introducing into the market a smartphone targeted specifically at the music-loving crowd. The company says the Boom J7 is for audiophiles but after spending several days with the device, we think it is not limited to just audiophiles, it is for everyone who loves their music. Here is the packaging of the Tecno […]

Read On Web → Tecno Boom J7: Unboxing and First Impressions

We finally got our hands on the recently launched Lumia 640 smartphone from Microsoft. This fourth generation Lumia device brings features that were previously on the high priced mid tier phones like the 830 and 730 down to more affordable price tier. As with all our reviews, we take extensive time to cover every facet […]

Read On Web → Lumia 640: First Hands On Impressions

Tecno introduced the Boom J7 into the Kenyan market looking forward to attracting the ordinary person on the streets who loves their music. Or so they have made us believe. The marketing materials being pushed all place the Tecno Boom J7 as a music device. One for the audiophiles. Does it really live up to […]

Read On Web → The Music Experience on the Tecno Boom J7

Read On Web → Tecno Boom J7: A decent affordable Android smartphone that does more

Jumia is running a super sale, next week. Dubbed the Jumia Mobile Week Megathon, it features some very great offers on smartphones. One of the smartphones that will be available at an incredibly cheap price is the Fly Eclipse 3. Fly mobile is one of the brands we told you recently that are entering the […]

Read On Web → First look at the Fly Eclipse 3 smartphone available exclusively through Jumia

The Lumia 640

Launched at MWC2015, the Lumia 640 and its bigger brother the Lumia 640XL, are the first 4th Generation of Lumia devices. Both devices were launched in Kenya in mid-May with the largest marketing campaign we have seen from Microsoft yet. This is a clear indication that there are high hopes for this device to do well in this market. After spending 3 weeks with the Lumia 640, I believe that the Lumia 640 offers the best value for any person who is focused on being productive.

Read our “Lumia 640: First Hands-On Impressions” article here.

Since the launch of Windows Phone 8, the “Lumia 6 Series” has been at the intersection of offering innovative hardware features (that are normally reserved for flagship phones) at affordable prices. Thus, it’s no surprise that the Lumia 620, Lumia 625, and Lumia 630/635 currently hold 25% of the Lumia market (data via AdDuplex). The Lumia 640 builds on this heritage and creates a devices that is arguably better than the Lumia flagship 2 generations ago, the Lumia 920.

The Lumia 640 compared to the Lumia 830 and Lumia 920.

Specifications
The Lumia 640 comes in two variations in Kenya. A Single SIM LTE version that is available in Safaricom shops, and a 3.5G Dual SIM version that is available in other authorized Microsoft dealer outlets.

Design
The Lumia 640 continues with the design language first introduced the Lumia 535. But unlike the 535, the poly-carbonate case of the 640 is noticeably stiffer and retains a high quality feel. It has the attractive dual shot treatment that provides a clear covering when viewed from some angles. The black and white colors will have a matte finish, while the blue and orange devices come with a glossy finish. The rather light weight of the Lumia 640 results in easy handling and portability.
The Lumia 640 has on screen menus that are easily swiped away when not in use to reveal more screen real estate. The 720p IPS, Gorilla Glass 3 screen of the Lumia 640 was was one of the highlights of using this device. It was a very close match to my daily driver, the Lumia 830 (which costs twice as much).

Battery Life
The Lumia 640 outshines in the battery capacity. The large 2500 mAh ensured that I easily got through a day on single charge. I always leave my Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Location, 4G data settings on, and don’t use any of the normal battery saving tips. Thus, if the Lumia 640 can get me through my day, then it will do more for you if you are a less demanding user.

Performance
Due to the 8GB internal memory of the Lumia 640 (which only leaves 5.5GB usable), it is recommended that a microSD card is purchased to supplement the on board storage. The advantage of the Windows Phone platform is that apps, multimedia and documents can be easily configured to automatically install to the microSD Card. This saves space on the internal storage, without impacting device performance. It is important to note that when purchasing a microSD, you should buy the highest rated card available.
The quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor ensured that, I was able to play games like Asphalt 8 smoothly and without any lag. NOTE: If you are gamer then its highly recommended that you buy a microSD card, as a graphics heavy game like Asphalt will fill up internal storage very quickly.

Imaging Performance

The Lumia 640 comes with Lumia Camera app that allows manual adjustment of image parameters as well capture HDR.

The Lumia 640 sports a 8MP rear camera with a LED flash. It also comes with the latest version of Lumia Camera that has the Rich Capture mode. This allows users to capture HDR images, automatically adjust the strength of the flash (after taking the picture) and remove images from video capture. The front facing camera is 0.9MP which is sufficient for video conferencing and selfies.
See sample pictures below.

Productivity

The Lumia 640 comes with 1 year Office635 Personal.

The Lumia 640 comes with a free 1 year subscription to Office 635 Personal. This package provides Office 365 installations for 1 PC, 1 Tablet as well as the phone. Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook are included. You will also receive 1TB of online storage on OneDrive (which will be expanded later in the year to unlimited storage).

To redeem your 1 year subscription of Office 365 Personal, you will need to download the Office 365 Gift App. Once installed, the app will walk you through the process to redeem your subscription.

The Future with Windows 10 Mobile
The Lumia 640 comes with the latest version of Windows Phone 8.1 GDR2 which adds an improved settings menu. However, the future of Windows Phone will take a giant leap in October with the launch of Windows 10 mobile. This update will be available on the Lumia 640 for free. As the next iteration of Microsoft’s operating system, Windows 10 will be the first operating system that runs across multiple devices and form factors (smartphones, laptops, servers and even IOT). This provides advantages in not only syncing personal account data between devices and PCS, but improved security management especially for enterprise customers.

Conclusion

At KES 19,999, the Lumia 640 will have stiff competition from the myriad of Chinese brands launched in Kenya over the past year. However where the Lumia stands out is that it offers a smooth user experience, an expansive local support system and most importantly guaranteed support from Microsoft when it comes to software updates and upgrades.

Read On Web → Lumia 640 Review: Microsoft Raises the Bar, Again

Google announced the revamped Photos at Google I/O to much dismay and excitement from the competition and users respectively. This past week, the company has been alerting users of the photos service baked inside Google+ to shift to the new Photos application. That marks the end of the road of one of Google+’s most popular features and the beginning of a new era where cloud photo backup is forever re-imagined.

I have been using Google Photos since that evening when it was shown on stage at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco during I/O and I have seen both the good and the bad of it. Being a user of rival services, I have also been able to see what Google is bringing to the table vis-à-vis what you get elsewhere.

Of course the biggest selling point of Google Photos is that Google won’t charge you a dime for it. It’s all free. You pay nothing for unlimited storage. All that is required of you is a few minutes of your time setting things up. Hit the Play Store or the iTunes store or load up photos.google.com on your computer and you’re already on your way. The next step is diving into the settings to activate a few things like facial recognition (limited to users in the US at the moment but I managed to get it working by using a VPN setup) and others like sync and auto-backup and geo-tagging. Of course you’ll be taken through a few steps to get these setup on your first run so it shouldn’t be that hard.

The magic however is what happens right after you’ve given Google the go ahead to access all your precious memories and let its algorithms do their work. It may take sometime before the first moments of magic happen. It could be just an hour, it could be 24 hours, it could be several days. All that is dependent on the number of photos you have in your devices and the quality of your internet connection.

Right after the syncing is complete, you’ll start getting several notifications. Photos has created a new animation. Photos has created a new photo story. And so on. These notifications will be from Assistant which like the name implies is, eerm, an assistant. It is a dashboard with cards with information that will likely be useful to you. For instance it keeps on reminding me which folder on my device that contains images is yet to be backed up to Photos and lets me decide if I want to do just that or ignore. It will also let you save the animations that Google Photos’ Auto-Awesome just created or discard them.

The Pros

Animations and effects are just awesome. They will not only blow you away but they will remind you of memories long forgotten. In my case, I got to see photos from five years ago when I had visited the interior of Kenya’s coastal region to see relatives I hadn’t met since birth. It was not only exciting but also emotional seeing as it is that it was the first time I got to see those relatives and mostly the last since many have since passed on due to old age. An enhanced image of my first day in college, another of me swarmed in cake at a friend’s birthday and an animation of us celebrating Manchester United’s 20th English title. Things and occasions that I had long forgotten about were all of a sudden fresh. That is the beauty of Photos. While the enhancements may at times go overboard (as you will see below), they are mostly ok.

My cat has never looked better

This animated GIF is just on point

Here are other instances of Auto-Awesome at work. From the Northern Rift Valley to just below the Maragoli hills to the inside of a cottage on the slopes of Mount Kenya to a view of the old Mombasa harbour on the Kenyan coastline:

Facial recognition

This is where you realize how dangerous the days we’re living in are. I have a whole treasure trove of photos of people ranging from various members of my family to former high school and college classmates to strangers I met on the internet. From my youngest step brother to my late grandfather. Thanks to singular references to them on tags I had created previously, Photos was able to detect every single appearance of their faces in my photos and grouped them accordingly. Here is where you stop being blown away and get scared at how much information Google has about you and your friends and family.

Search

In my list of my favourite Android applications, I included an application whose further usage is not guaranteed any more: F-Stop Media Gallery. F-Stop is super when it comes to letting you edit a photo’s metadata to add things like unique tags. These come in handy when you’re in your gallery and want a photo from say your trip to Malindi two years ago. With tags like Watamu, it becomes very easy to search and get what you’re looking for. What if you didn’t have to go through all that trouble?

That is what Photos is doing. It does all the heavy lifting for you. You just sit back and relax knowing some piece of code is hard at work on your behalf. You don’t have to do a single thing. Well, besides searching itself. Google works in the background to detect all the places you’ve been to and groups the photos accordingly. Besides the obvious chronological order that is. It will also go an extra mile and detect the weather for instance. You won’t believe this but searching for “Nairobi rains May” brought about a flood ( ) of photos I had saved from my Twitter feed about the recent rain havoc in Kenya’s capital.

The search term “Nairobi rains May” may have yielded the expected results mostly because today’s cameras do a great job geo-tagging. What if you took photos with an old camera that didn’t keep location information? This is the other moment when you grin from ear to ear. Photos is pretty accurate when it comes to detecting things in your photos. You see, it just doesn’t know the people in your photos, the places where you took those photos and the weather conditions at that particular time but it also identifies the things in those photos. Things like cars and aeroplanes and landmarks like famous sites or buildings. You should’ve seen my face when Photos correctly identified the crying stone of Illesi in Western Kenya.

Photo Editing

While we will still bemoan the loss of the Snapseed-like features (actually borrowed from Snapseed) after the departure of Google+ Photos, all is not lost either. We still have a few tools to make minimal photo editing possible. There are filters as well as the obvious tools like cropping. They’re all basic and there’s nothing amazing about them. For a photo application that is keen on doing other things with the primary one being holding all your memories in one place, they aren’t that bad either. However, it is my considered opinion that with Google keen on making Photos better going forward, this is the one area it will need to start with besides of course, the annoying compression. More on that later.

Sharing to social media

I have a habit of keeping memes I find very interesting somewhere on my OneDrive so that I can be able to use them on some people on my Twitter timeline at some later date. I have found that I have a home for such on Google Photos. This is thanks to how easy it is to share images stored on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It is much easier to share my throwback Thursday to Facebook straight from Photos instead of the cumbersome process of downloading then uploading them again. On Twitter, trolling has never been much easier.

The Cons

Google Photos is not all about being blown away by what algorithms can do with your images taken over the years. Yes Google will put all that at your disposal but there are several drawbacks as well.

Compression

If you want to take advantage of Photos’ unlimited photo storage then all your images and videos will be compressed. Google adds a rider that it will only compress images and videos that are beyond 16 megapixels and 1080p respectively, we found out that it compresses just about everything. While Google will keep its word and maintain the 16 megapixels or lower resolution, you will notice a decline in overall size of the image itself after Photos syncs it.

Picture ( ) this:

I shot the image whose properties are shown above during the launch of the Orange Klif in Kenya at the iHub on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Note how the image was compressed to a mere 655 kilobytes down from the original 2.36 megabytes. All along, as promised, the resolution was maintained at 9.6 megapixels (4128 x 2322).

Conclusion

While the compression will mostly go unnoticed (your naked eye will hardly pick it out), it is there and it is what will either make you stick to saving your full resolution images on Google Drive or look for other options. I am a big fan of Microsoft’s OneDrive since it is a much better proposition. You get unlimited storage (coming soon) for just about anything including your RAW image files and unedited videos with your Office365 subscription. Even then Google will only charge you $2 per month to host your full resolution images. Or just shift to Flickr. You get 1 terabyte free storage for all your sunset shots.

While the professionals will likely opt to keep their high resolution shots as they are and even pay for them, the casual smartphone user is well served by Google Photos as is. With auto-upload turned on, you are assured no treasured memory will be lost. With an awesome timeline feature, you’ll soon be looking back at those photos of you dancing in your drunken stupor in college and missing the days when being young, wild and free was the norm and taxes and other responsibilities that come with adult life were things you read about in novels.

Read On Web → Google Photos: Unlimited Photo Storage for the Masses and More

In March, Digital Television Company StarTimes Media launched a High Definition DVB T2 decoder for the Digital Terrestrial platform (DTT). The HD decoder retails at Kshs. 999 + 1500 subscription. The new decoders come with an improved physical design which is smaller and  an improved user interface. StarTimes also added new channels and new neat features that allow the user to easily navigate channels and content. So what’s new?

Faster Set-Up Time

We are used to getting home, switching the TV and having to wait till the decoder to set up and probably missing on a news story in the process. The StarTimes HD decoder wowed me with the quick pace of set up which averaged 12 seconds on three trials. By any standards, that is a quick set-up time, as we are used to 3-5 minutes of set-up.

Revamped User Interface

One of the most striking features of the StarTimes HD decoder is the improved user interface both in terms of visual hierarchy and content. The UI implements the separation of content making it quicker and easier to select TV channels you want to watch. After switching your TV and decoder on,press menu on the remote and you are ushered into a variety of options which include Guide, Indian channels, Settings, All channels, Radio, Entertainment, Movies, News, Music, Children, Sports, Documentary, Religion, Lifestyle, TV Series. Selecting either of the options offers a user content based on this interest. Selecting music option, opens up to the three music channels offered by StarTimes and prompts the user to scroll and select their favorite. This hierarchical representation of content was well delivered and implemented.  The UI has also incorporated  a new blue layout, which has largely improved the aesthetics in the new HD decoder.

Channel Management

With the HD decoder, users of the StarTimes HD decoder have increased options and more controls with the information laid out intuitively. The user has a variety of options including the ability to lock/unlock a given channel. Locking the channel is basically the additional of parental controls to the content you want to watch. It involves adding a lock code and then inputting the “lock” feature, rendering the content inaccessible to those without the lock code. To unlock the channel,  the user will just need to input the pre-set code from their remote control and you are set. By default the code is 0000.

Channel management also adds a new feature “Watch” which acts like a confirmation, that you in deed want to change the channel.  Interestingly, even with this feature, StarTimes does not give you the choice to choose and automatically assumes, if you are browsing this channel you want to watch it. I selected the news option,which ushered a drop down of select channels, I selected the BBC and wanted to check what was showing on Al Jazeera. The channel automatically assumed i want to switch channels and selected Al Jazeera. Still, you can book upto 32 channels over a period of seven days using the autotune feature.

In addition to being able to lock and unlock channels, there is also the ability to add the channels to favorites. There is a special tab for favorites that allows you to quickly access those channels and radio stations you like without having to necessarily browse the entire selection. Your StarTimes favorite channels are highlighted with a yellow star a mark of how much love you have in them. Other features in channel management include channel setting,  where one can add subtitles, select the language, the decoders also offer multilingual support for English, Swahili, French and Portuguese and audio options. There is also channel status that checks on the signal strength and quality besides offering more information on the specific channel you are watching such as channel number frequency as well as the audio track.

Design

The guys at StarTimes did a good job with the design of the StarTimes HD decoder. The HD decoder is smaller unlike with the previous decoders. They also revamped the look and design of the new decoders. We were used to grey-white and black, rectangular StarTimes decoders. They also had a metallic feel to them and were pretty bulky when held. The StarTimes HD decoder eliminates all these vexatious details by implementing a simple Prism like design. They also went minimalist with the decoder design by dropping volume and channel navigation buttons and instead remaining with horizontal navigation and menu buttons. These are the most functional ones as they allow the user to operate remote-independent. The Remote control also went minimalist and has dropped several buttons. The HD decoder has three buttons at the top, a slot at the side that allows the user to insert their smart card as well as minimal cabling with just a power power supply, HDMI Port, USB port and antennae input. The three RC connectors common in decoders were eliminated and replaced with the HDMI port.  The exterior of the HD decoder is sleek and smooth occasioned by the use of plastic components, which also contribute to the light weight. The decoder is also smaller with an additional layer of green at the edges on the top of the decoder adding the beautiful aesthetics. The remote on the other hand, has the power, menu, mute and back buttons. The volume, channel navigation and enter buttons are merged into a single into a single control component. The remote also incorporates digits to allow one to input the channel number directly.

Channels

For one to enjoy the HD channels that come with the HD decoder, they must have HD TV sets. There are currently two HD channels, the Bollywood HD and NBA TV HD. There are however plans to introduce new HD channels soon. Even so, the quality of images and audio as well as the strength of the signal with the HD decoder is pretty decent.

StarTimes have managed to offer a bouquet of 9 local radio channels. They have 7 movie channels including iRoko Play, iRoko Plus, Startimes Zone, the African Movie Channel (AMC) and Zee Cinema. They have managed to bundle up  5 news channels including BBC and Al Jazeera, 3 music channels including MTV base and 5 channels focused on children. There are 8 sports channel including Fox Sports and NBA TV HD as well as Sports Focus, a 24 hour Sports news channel.  Discovery Channel and Viasat comprise the 5 documentary channels while 6 channels are bundled under religion. Others include Indian with 5 channels, 7 TV series channels as well as 1 lifestyle channel.

The Klutzy

While we love the vim StarTimes showed with the HD decoder, there are a few things, which need some work. The remote needs work. I liked the fact that its simple and uncomplicated but it feels odd with too much real estate left for the logo. With the elimination of the unnecessary features,  a reduction in the size would have been apt. In addition, labeling of the buttons in the single control panel to indicate which one changes channels as well as which one adds the volume. In most instances, I kept confusing the buttons which, was equally frustrating. Still on the remote, there is need to add an information button, to ease navigation and the process of browsing through the various channels offerings. Currently, one has to press the menu function to navigate and choose channels, confuse between the volume button and the change channel function, as you try to get information on what is showing.

With the HD decoder, StarTimes have implemented electronic program guide that allows you to book up to 32 channels for 7 days on autotune. While this is commendable, this feature needs work.  The EPG allows the viewers to navigate between channels, identify the currently screening program and the next program (‘now and next’) on each channel. It would be apt if the reminders provided a short synopsis of the content of programs and also allow for easy search for programs by genre.

Interestingly, there are two features on the HD decoder that do not function. We mounted a USB driver onto the USB port, but it was not recognized on the television screen. We also tried to navigate the decoder using the buttons on the decoder but they were non-responsive.

Would I buy the HD decoder? definitely. The HD channels are in real HD with astonishingly good image and audio quality.  In addition, the other channels are also in very good quality, and it presents some neat features at a particularly good pricing point.

Read On Web → Review: What To Expect From Startimes HD Set Top Box

I would not call myself a huge music fan but I’m the type to know every line, hook, chorus and beat to my favorite songs which amount to roughly 1000 plus on my iPod but I digress.

June 30th 2015 – the much anticipated iOS 8.4 update that mainly brought Apple Music and minor bug fixes was launched. 20 minutes later my iPhone 5s was rebooting after the small download size which is unlike Apple’s previous updates.

Being an “OCD” phone user I immediately noticed that the music icon was different. It was white in color with a neon effect much more “in tune” with the iOS 7/8 color palette. I clicked on it fingers crossed with the full knowledge that similar services such as Spotify, Tidal and Google Play Music were unavailable in our region.

The screen that followed put the largest smile across my face.

Apple Music – All the ways you love music. All in one place. Start 3 month free trial.

The world is crazy for music streaming services and now I know why.

Apple Music is official and I love it.

It’s now been a full 2 weeks of use since then and I’m thoroughly smitten. My iPhone is normally reserved for podcast use but now all I do is stream music. The audio quality is crisp. I’m no audiophile but I can assure you that Apple didn’t go cheap on us. The music selection is wide, vast and absurdly great.

The app itself has a completely new interface with 5 tabs at the bottom: For You, New, Radio, Connect and My Music.

For You

This is a section of curated music according to your genre and artist preference when you set up the app for the first time although you can simply change that if need be.

It gives you a selection of 7 to 8 playlists tailored to your tastes and plenty of albums to choose from. I personally loved the Fresh to Death playlist that started me off with Drake’s – Worst Behavior and threw in some new A$AP Rocky, Joey Bada$$, 2 Chainz, Big Sean, J.Cole and so on. Clearly I’m a Hip-Hop Head.

New

The New Section is mainly for music discovery. It encompasses all genres but you can select either Alternative, Classical, Dance/Electronic, Hip-Hop/Rap, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rock and World. It has Hot Tracks, Apple Editors Playlists, Activity Paylists and Curator Playlists, Top Songs, Recent Releases and Recommended Music Videos. Quite impressive in my opinion.

Radio

Radio on the other hand is where most of us will live seeing as the iPhone does not have an inbuilt radio app. The station is called Beats 1 which came from the acquisition of Beats Music and Beats Electronics by Apple for a staggering $3 Billion last year.

Well Beats 1 is pretty cool. It’s simply good radio without a lot of nonsense in-between.

It’s a 24 hour broadcasting service that is worldwide and trust me they will constantly remind you of that – Beats 1. Worldwide. Always on – is something you will hear almost every 15 minutes into any show. The shows are pretty good with very exclusive interviews. We had Eminem talking about music obviously and his new tracks on the upcoming Southpaw movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Eminem revealed that he was meant to be starring in the role but his schedule didn’t allow him. It’s radio like this that appeals to a worldwide audience.

There are also guest hosts such as Sir Elton John who had a great playlist of old classic rock and roll and the latest rock, hip-hop and R&B.

There is also Featured Stations which have Charting Now, Pop Hits, Sound System, The Mixtape, On The Floor and All-City. Think of this as a mix of the latest and the greatest music selection. I call it UK Top 40 music on fleek.

Connect

Connect is the fourth tab and it is for bringing artists and their fans closer. It is simply the social media aspect of the app. It has the artists that you follow and the artists can share photos of shows, music video sets and scripts. It’s something new but the least interesting of the tabs as I just don’t find the urge to reach for it.

My Music

Finally we have My Music tab which holds your current library and playlists.

The best thing with Apple Music is that you can save all the music you want on your device by simply clicking on the 3 dots on any song and adding to my music. From there you have to “track” down the song and make it available offline. And just like that. It is yours without an internet connection.

Streaming on carrier internet is decent but I prefer the wifi and save offline route. It has less probability for failure.

Apple Music is free for 3 months after which you will be required to subscribe at a fee of $4.99 (roughly Kshs.500) per month for access to the service. It is quite a bargain as it is $9.99 in the US. There is also the Family Sharing option which goes for $7.99 (roughly Kshs.800) per month for up to 6 members.

It is quite the bargain and I can assure you that I have my payment set on automatic renewal. The new age of music is here for Apple fans and soon to Android users as it will be available later this year.

The app also works quite well with Siri. Ask Siri something like “Hey Siri, Play the top songs of last year” and boom! – Playing the top 25 songs from 2014. Obviously the first song that leads the playlist is Happy by Pharrell Williams as if to crown your feelings at that moment.

The only problem I have now is insufficient space. I’m constantly cursing myself for cheapening out and getting the 16 GB variant of my phone. I guess it’s time for an upgrade and that iPhone 6 64 GB in gold looks convincing.

Read On Web → Head-turner: A Review of Apple Music

For the most part, smartphones today are the most capable devices. Camera. Music player. Sound recorder. Entertainment guide. Newspaper. Work. For the advanced user, this is what you expect from your smartphone and it is what you get, mostly. But what if you aren’t that. You just want a phone that is smart enough to keep you posted as you’re stuck in traffic in the morning on your way to work and will still be having enough juice in the evening for you to withdraw some cash at an M-PESA outlet before heading home. Definitely an overpriced mid-ranger doesn’t come to mind here. Neither does a super-expensive high end smartphone.

There’s quite a number of phones that you may consider if you happen to be in such a situation. We’ve covered them extensively before but mostly bar the Windows Phones, you’ll be stuck with a low cost Android smartphone that ends up being accustomed to your home or workplace wall (while charging) than your bare hands. That’s not what we want. It’s likely not what you’re looking for too. There are exceptions like the Hot Note but I think over the last few weeks I’ve interacted with something not as big (and that’s a bad thing by the way) and not so bad. Plus, for the price of the Hot Note, you’ll get two of these. It’s the Orange Klif.

Made by Chinese company TCL, the one behind the Alcatel brand, for French telecoms giant Orange, the Klif is just a low cost smartphone that happens to not run Android. There’s nothing else spectacular about it besides two things: the price point and the platform. It is easily the cheapest smartphone in the Kenyan market at the moment. It’s just Ksh 4,000. And while we are at it, it is not misleading to say that it is also easily the less annoying of the low cost smartphones in the Kenyan market. Yeah, it takes a lot of courage to put up with the Safaricom Neon smartphone which is the Klif’s biggest competitor in the Kenyan market and its twin sibling back in the factory floors in China.

The Alcatel Orange Klif runs Firefox OS. The Mozilla Foundation is targeting emerging smartphone markets with this device. The first generation of Firefox OS smartphones was never a success. The Mozilla Foundation was never able to make any serious headway to consider the program a success. That is why it had to be rebooted. The Klif is part of the rebooting efforts. That was necessitated by the need to bring to the market something that could compete with the hundreds of low cost entry level Android smartphones that mostly lured customers with their flashy colours and not-so-bad specifications.

The App Gap

As can be expected of a smartphone at that price point, the Klif doesn’t have a decent camera. Neither will the display and the speakers excite anyone. If you approach it looking for above par specifications then you are looking in all the wrong places. The Klif is a phone first and everything else second. At least for now. And it is meant for everyone looking forward to their first smartphone experience. It also doesn’t hurt to give it a try if you have been using smartphones for a while since it is insanely cheap but don’t go for it with high expectations.

The Firefox OS Marketplace is a desert as far as apps go. There isn’t much to write home about. Local developers are expected to play a huge role in helping to close this app gap with time but as of now, it is what it is: a desert. That may not last long though as plans are already underway to bring support for Android apps to the platform.

While the Safaricom Neon taps the power of Android albeit with a third rate take, the Klif is left with nothing but a handful of preloaded applications to show off. All my gripes about the Klif aside, I really enjoyed tweeting on it. Reading tweets on the small display is also exciting as it reminds me of the days when phones were still phones and not 21st century attempts at rethinking the Swiss army knife. When you could still catch up with everything that’s happening in our global village without telling the whole world what hardware you’re doing so from. For the guys with large hands, the Klif will hide in your palms effortlessly.

The Orange Klif and the Safaricom Neon are pretty much the same phone. The Klif has an LED flash that you may mostly never use when taking snaps but only as a flashlight. There, it one-ups the Neon but that may be just about it. It’s use-case is heavily reliant on the Firefox browser and basic apps like the dialer and messenger unlike the Neon which struggles to keep up with the demanding applications available on the Google Play Store.

Need WhatsApp? You’ll need to go through the ConnectA2 application first. Despite a strong network connection, I was never able to get ConnectA2 to work most of the time. It takes quite some time to load. The same was the case when I was transferring/importing my contacts from the inserted microSD card.

The Firefox OS user interface is not something most will have experienced before and as such a slight learning curve kicks in but won’t stand in the way of your usage of the device. All the applications stay on the home screen as there is no application drawer. And there’s one more beautiful thing about it: you’re good to go withing few minutes of booting it up for the first time ever. No annoying prompts to set this and that up.

The one thing I really liked about the Orange Klif is the voice quality when making calls. It may not be at the level where I can describe it as excellent but it is much better than what I get on other respectable mid-range smartphones I’ve been using. The battery is also good. Then again, what would its excuse be since there’s almost nothing running in the background constantly and there are almost no specialized sensors to sip that juice?

Here are the specifications of the Orange Klif:

• Display: 3.5 inch HVGA (320 x 480)
• Camera: 2 MP with LED flash
• Processor: Dual-core Mediatek MT6572M chipset clocked at 1 GHz
• Memory: 512 MB internal storage (expandable up to 32 GB via microSD); 256 MB RAM
• Operating system: Firefox 2.0
• Battery: 1,300 mAh
• Network: 2G/3G
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
• Others: FM radio, Dual-SIM
• Available in black and white colours

The good

• Good voice quality when making calls.
• It’s tough. You don’t need to be worried about dropping it.
• The browser. Being a Firefox phone, the browser is central to the overall experience and it doesn’t disappoint. Besides tweeting, I was able to do so much good to myself by turning to the browser than the standalone applications themselves.

Needs work

• The camera is a hell lot awful. Not that you should expect anything better at that price but I have to point out that it’s not any good.
• Apps. While the persons this phone is targeting may be buying it as their first smartphone, it could do so much to make that experience better by having a wider selection of applications. Yes there’s 2048 Classic and other titles as far as games go but what else is there?

Take note

You will need an Orange SIM card if you’re to get the Klif working. It’s their phone after all. It’s locked to the Orange network so while it is a dual-SIM smartphone, SIM 1 must be an Orange card and you can insert your other line on the second SIM slot.

Should you buy it?

It’s cheap and it’s a prime candidate for “ultimate back up phone” if your phone usage mirrors mine or is somewhere near there.

However, this is a good proposition for everyone else who just wants a smartphone, no questions asked. It will let you check your friends’ status updates on Facebook, it will let you participate in #SomeoneTellCNN on Twitter, play music stored in your memory card as well as act as your flashlight. Seriously, there isn’t much use for the LED flash at the back of the phone besides that since photos are awful and selfies are a distant dream. For a phone that won’t need to be plugged in to a charger every day more so if your usage of cellular data is limited, it’s a steal at just Ksh 4,000 or about $40.

Read On Web → Orange Klif Review: The Phone for Everyone Else

Zanguni is an event management platform that showcases events happening around you and enables you to pay for them. This was something three high school leavers, Benjamin Oganga, Januaris Mbithi and Albert Obura ,thought about as they searched for a “plot”(plan). They observed that such a platform, customized to Kenyans either did not exist or that those that existed were poorly managed and very basic. They sought out to create an Android application that would not only show you events in your surroundings, but also enable you to purchase tickets. Zanguni is derived from 2 swahili words; “zangu” and “ni” which loosely translates to where my things belong. This is something the developers feel like events should be to the event goers, personal.

Created under their company,  Becarn Corporations Africa Limited, the  developers describe the reception of Zanguni in the Kenyan lifestyle market as both encouraging and driving factor for improvement. They acknowledged that the journey has not been easy, but when they see people talking about it, tweeting about it among other things, then this motivates them to wake up everyday and create more.

First impressions..

The Zanguni app is available on the Google Playstore. Being only 643kb, it won’t really dent your storage space or take up much of your precious bundles to download. Once you open the app, you are greeted with a list of upcoming events for the week. I quickly noticed that there wasn’t a quick view of upcoming events for the next few months or weeks. I think this would be a good feature to add especially for annual events and those events that require earlier planning (more than a week). Various tabs are also presented to the user. These are categories, featured and top free tabs which work to give a view of specific events based on what you are looking for.

The user interface is fine, there is quite a straightforward navigation. The pictures could do with better resolution and aligning but you can still gather information about the event from the posters. You can view more details about an event but in my opinion, the font used could be better.

Once you identify an event, you can proceed to purchase a ticket. This process is quite convenient and easy. With a few details (your name, phone number and email) you are given various ways to make your payment. They use Jambo pay as the pay channel and this allows user to access various methods of paying from mobile money to credit and debit cards.

My take away..

Well this is an application that works. Its a brilliant first step for this young developers who identified a problem that they faced and provided a working solution. They said that this is not the final product and it will become better, and appeal to more people. To this effect, they have hinted that there will be an added feature called “My Tickets” which will let you buy an unlimited number of tickets without having them sent to your email. Essentially this means you can access your tickets without having to go outside the application which is a plus.

This is the first of many applications to be developed under their  umbrella company with the aim of developing  Nairobi into Africa’s Silicon Valley. They are therefore geared towards new innovative projects with Zanguni as their flagship project.

Read On Web → App Review: Zanguni Event Management App

Tecno Mobile surprised many industry insiders when it launched the WinPad 10 2-in1 hybrid just over a month ago in Nairobi. Tecno had, until then, just produced Android based mobile smartphones and tablets that focused on meeting the specifics needs of the African consumer. This approach has enabled Tecno to quickly grow it’s market share to rival more established OEMs in the region. Recognizing the need for productivity based devices, Tecno partnered with Intel to develop the WinPad 10, the first in a line upcoming Windows products from Tecno.

“The next category that we are developing right now is WINPAD. The feature for this class will be productivity. Basically we are looking at 2-in-1 devices, plus a low cost notebook. The 2-in-1 devices that we are developing range from 8.9”, 10.1”, 11.6” and 12”¹. The key difference between Tecno and other multinational companies is that we develop our products oriented for the African market.” Steven Huang, Tecno Mobile’s General Manager of the Tablet Division

As I have owned both the Microsoft Surface RT and Surface Pro 1 tablets, I was curious to see how this KES 29,999 tablet from an Android manufacturer would hold up. Would it provide a lack luster experience like so many of the affordable Windows 8.1 tablets, or was i about to stumble on an electronic manufactured in Ethiopian highlands?  Spoiler note: I will be purchasing my own WinPad 10. After installing Windows 10 on the WinPad10 and spending two weeks testing the devices, I have realized that Tecno did make something special.

The Tecno Winpad 10: Small, but packs a huge productivity punch.

Specifications

So who is the WinPad 10 for? A quick look at the specs (especially the 2GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage for a Windows device) and you might be tempted to say this device doesn’t meet anyone needs. However, this is a case of the “Whole” being greater than the sum of its parts. The ultra portability of this device (someone could mistake it for a paper notebook), Windows 10, Office 365 and 3G SIM means that it perfect for individuals who are extremely mobile, need to be productive and need to be connected: College students and mobile Office office workers.

What’s In The Box

Tecno WinPad 10 packaging

• WinPad 10 (comes with screen protector already installed) comes with Windows 8.1 Bing Edition
• Power Adaptor with 2 quick connect plugs (2 Pin and 3 Pin)
• Chiclet Keyboard with Flap
• Product Info sheet
• Warranty Card

This is what is in the box of the WinPad 10

Hardware Design

The 10.1” 16:9 IPS screen is bright and vivid with decent viewing angles. NOTE: To use the screen outdoors, you will need to crank brightness to maximum, though indoors you can comfortably use it at 50-60% levels. On the front face of the WinPad 10, is a Windows Logo that acts as the home button. On the left edge, you’ll find a combination 3.5mm headphone and speaker port, the internal microphone, a full size USB 3.0 port, a micro-HDMI port and a charging port. On the right edge, you’ll find the power button, volume rocker and a micro-USB port. The top edge of the WinPad 10 features a plastic flap that hides the micro-SIM and micro-SD compartment. Be careful when  opening this flap as it requires sufficient force to pry it loose. All the hardware keys feel sturdy and operate with a noticeable “click”.

The WinPad 10 features a metal surround and a dimpled plastic back. The keyboard cover can fold in 3 different ways to provide a variety of support positions to hold the WinPad10.The construction of the keyboard doesn’t meet the quality of the tablet with the edges of the soft cover material fraying easily. The keys on the keyboard offer sufficient travel when pressed and thus provide a pleasant typing experience. However, the included trackpad is barely usable. With no buttons or defined click zones, it will frustrate you in a hurry. Fortunately, you can use the 10 point touch screen, or connect a Bluetooth mouse (and keep your USB ports free). The magnets that secure the bottom edge of the WinPad to the keyboard aren’t as strong as though on the Surface so you will need to be careful when lifting the WinPad without supporting the keyboard. I would NOT recommend recreating the famous Surface Click advert with your WinPad.

The battery charger is also an interesting choice. At a time where many OEMs are opting to use the micro USB port for charging, Tecno opted to use a standard 9V pin connector to charge the 7000 mAH battery. This proved to be a wise decision as it speeds up the charging process (taking about 2.5 to completely charge the WinPad 10 from empty). Had Tecno used the USB port, charging times would have tripled.

Without the keyboard attached, the WinPad 10 is light enough for comfortable one handed use. I cannot reiterate enough the difference you will feel in your laptop bag when your substitute your bulky laptop for the WinPad 10. If your shoulder could thank you, it would. Profusely. One neat trick of the WinPad is its ability to be used on the lap. By folding the cover flaps inwards you can create a stable base on that can rest on your lap.

Software and User Experience

Out of the box, the WinPad 10 comes with Windows 8.1 with Bing. This special version of Windows 8 comes with Bing installed as the default search provider (and thus saves the OEMs the license fee). As the user has the ability to easily change the search provider, Windows 8.1 with Bing is no different from Windows 8.1 when viewed from the customer perspective. The Tecno WinPad 10 is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10 Home Edition. However, before you upgrade, you should do the following:

Storage Size on the Tecno Winpad 10

You will find that the device  has 23 GB free of the 32 GB internal storage.

To maximize your experience on your new Tecno Winpad 10. I suggest you do the following:

1. Install your free copy of Office 365 personal. This is done via the “Get Office” app (comes pre-installed). The app will walk you though on how to activate your license and setup a Microsoft account if you don’t have one.
2. Set up your OneDrive account (with 1 year of 1TB storage) before installing any other programs or files. Due to the limited internal local storage, you will need to rely on the cloud to maximize your productivity.
3. Purchase a 32GB or 64GB micro-SD card. Buy the highest class that you can afford (something similar to this card on Jumia Kenya). This will help store your documents and personal files without impacting your C drive.

Now that you have installed Office, set up your OneDrive account and purchased a micro SD card you are now ready to upgrade to Windows 10. NOTE: Windows 10 is free from today for all Windows 7 and Windows 8 devices that have a valid license. Go to Windows Update and install any pending updates. One of these updates  will install the “Get Windows 10” app. As Windows 10 is rolling out from today on, you will be able to reserve the Windows 10 app and have it installed to your device automatically.

After installing your microSD card, you can set Windows 10 to use this as a default save location for your documents, music and files. This will help you save valuable storage space on your C drive.

Designate Storage location using Windows 10.

Hardware Performance

The Intel Bay trail chip-set performs on par with an Intel Core Duo 2 chip set. I was able to stream 4K YouTube videos without any lagging or distortion. Games like Asphalt 8 worked well without dropped frames. On multitasking, I could run an Office program, stream music via Groove and have several browser tabs open. As the WinPad 10 only has 2 GB of RAM, performance hits will happen due to RAM hungry applications. I would have preferred if Tecno had included 3 or 4GB of RAM, but that would have increased the price.

The 7000 mAH battery was able to last just under 7 hours when I ran the PCMark8 battery test. As this is a continuous test where the PC is on all the time, you can expect at least a 30% improvement in daily usable battery life. I was able to consistently get between 8.5 to 10 hours depending on how I used the device (watching videos consumed power faster than working on spreadsheets). Charge time from empty to full takes about 2 hours 15 minutes. This fast charge time is due to the high voltage pin plug. Though using a USB cable would make charging more convenient, the increased charging time would have been worth it.

Windows 10 on the WinPad 1o = Perfect Match Made

The Tecno Winpad 10 is eligible for  free upgrade for  In summary, let me say that Windows 10 feels familiar to both users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.It eliminates the “dual nature” of Windows 8 where the Metro Apps didn’t see to fit in with the more windows traditional apps

• Start Screen

The start screen in Windows 10 has been reworked to accommodate users who love the minimalism of classic Start menu in Windows 7 and users who love the dynamic nature of the Windows 8 start screen with Live Tiles. It is up to the user to configure the start screen based on their choice. You can resize the Live Tiles, turn the Live Tiles on/off, and even group the Live Tiles into categories.

Start screen on Desktop Mode.

If you are a power user, the functionality that you are used too is a “right click on that start menu” away. This lets you quickly access the old school control panel, command prompt, disk management, device manage among many others.

• Notification Center

The Notification Center on Windows 10 collates all your notifications as well as provides one touch access to the settings you use most. You can access the Notification by swiping in from the right edge.

Notification Center on Windows 10

• Edge

Microsoft Edge is a new light wight and super fast browser built from the ground up for the modern web. It discarded all the legacy bloat of Internet Explorer (this is included as a separate app). Edge provides innovate features like writing notes directly on webpages then sharing them. Microsoft has indicated that Edge will support extensions in the very near future.

Microsoft Edge is a fast browser that allows you to make notes directly on a webpage then share it.

• Cortana

Cortana is your friendly personal digital assistant. Use here to quickly set reminders, search for documents, keep track of agendas, search the web and more. She can even tell jokes. But best of all Cortana is also available for your smartphone (Android, iOS and Windows Phone). Thus any reminders that you set on while on your WinPad, will come through on your phone.

• Apps

Windows 10 brings apps that are optimized for both touch and keyboard and mouse. You can find these apps in the new Windows App Store. Apps like Mail, Groove Music, News, Sports and more will help you be more productive.

• Office

The WinPad 10  comes with 1 year of Office 365. This includes the latest version of Microsoft’s popular productivity suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Sway and OneNote). As these apps are designed primarily for keyboard/mouse interaction, you can also install touch optimized versions of Office. These apps (Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, Word Mobile) are free in the Windows Store. Excel Mobile,

• Continuum

Possibly one of the most important features of Windows 10 on a tablet is Continuum. With a single push of the “Tablet Mode” button on the notification center, you can quickly transform how Windows 10 operates to suit your need.You can also activate Tablet mode be going to Settings > System > Tablet Mode. Continuum allows the user to use the mode that suits the particular task they are using. This is a huge improvement from Windows 8.1 where the user had to deal with the full start screen regardless of the task they were performing.

When the keyboard is attached, it makes more sense to stay in “Desktop Mode”. In this mode, the start screen doesn’t fill the screen, app windows are also not full screen (unlike Windows 8) and can be cascaded.

When Tablet mode is engaged, the start screen and all open apps go to full screen, menus are expanded for improved touch usability. On the start screen you can press the hamburger button at the left hand top corner  of screen to show your app list. For multitasking you can either select apps via the taskbar, or via the task view button.

However, unlike the Surface tablets, the Tecno Winpad 10 doesn’t automatically activate Continuum (tablet mode) when the keyboard is detached. This feature increases usability as the device can automatically react to users need. Hopefully Tecno can resolve this small but user critical oversight with a software update in the near future.

For more about Windows 10 features please read these Techweez two articles:

Things To Consider After Upgrading to Windows 10

Features That make Windows 10 A Great Upgrade

Competing Devices

The WinPad 10 that competes directly with the ASUS T100 tablet. Though the ASUS cost on average KES 10,000 more, it has less RAM (1GB) and lower resolution cameras. This makes choosing the Winpad 10 a no-brainer.

Conclusion

While I fully expected to be disappointed by the Tecno WinPad 10, I ended being a convert after 2 weeks of use. The positives were the bright screen, long battery life, 3G connectivity and off course Windows 10. The negatives were the poor touch pad design and 9v pin power adapter (instead of a USB adapter). Admittedly, i nitpicking with the last point as it is necessary to ensure fast charging. I also had an odd bug with the display auto rotation being 180 degrees. This is probably due to a driver conflict with the Beta Windows 10 builds that I tested the device on. The public release of Windows 10 will not have this issue. It is also important to know that while the WinPad 10 does some things well, don’t expect it to run your intensive PC games or edit movie effects with After Effects.

The Tecno Winpad 10

As I stated at the start of the article, I will be buying my own Tecno WinPad 10. Let me explain why:

I am in the consulting field and thus work primarily at Clients location. When I am not on a project, I am constantly traversing the city on business development. My current mobile laptop is 2010 13″ HP Envy Envy Intel Core 2 Duo laptop running Windows 10 (which even though compact, it is still heavy). Add the power brick, and my laptop bag is heavy enough to put a strain on my shoulder. The WinPad 10 would help me improve my productivity in three ways.

1. It is powerful enough to handle my work flow software (Office365, Project, Visio) with out a comprising my established work pattern.
2. included 3G SIM means that I can connect where I am, without having to tether to my phone when the client’s WiFi is insufficient, or Java WiFi is on the brink.
3. Most importantly the light weight of the Tecno WinPad  10 means I can carry a smaller laptop bag. Not only does this help my back, but also provides more security as a large laptop bag stands out for theft.

Even though I am waiting for the next generation Surface Pro 4 device to arrive, the KES 30,000 price of the WinPad 10 makes it a perfect stopgap computing device.

We can expect to see more Windows 10 devices from Tecno in coming months including a 12″ 2-in-1 device running Intel Skylake. Who knows, I may not end up buying the Surface Pro 4 after all?

NOTE: I added a paragraph detailing the battery performance of the WinPad 10 in the Hardware Performance section. Aug 6, 2015, 1:30pm

Read On Web → Tecno WinPad 10 Review: A delightful device made better with Windows 10

One thing that we all face in Nairobi is traffic, not unless you walk to your workplace or school, you’ll definitely experience the wrath of Nairobi traffic. Now that we know you cannot avoid it, how can you outsmart it? Well Waze promises to help you with that. As you can recall, we talked about Waze being launched in Kenya slightly over a week ago and promised to share what we’d make of it. Waze, was a Israeli startup bought by Google in 2013. Google partnered with Safaricom to launch Waze in Kenya. It is a direct competitor with our already existing traffic reporting application, Ma3Route but with distinct differences.

I decided to put Ma3Route aside and try out Waze and here are a few things that stood out for me;

User Interface

Once you open Waze app, you are get a map, showing your location. There are various floating buttons on display.  The button on the lower left hand side has a menu where you can access navigation, send your ETA to a friend, your profile and inbox. On the right, there is a button that allows the user to report various things on the road from traffic jams, police sightings, accidents, map issues, road closure and so on. It is a good UI that works. Furthermore, all these features are easy to access, especially when driving.

Navigation

Other  than Waze being a community based mapping and traffic app, it also offers navigation. Picking your current  location as a starting point, it calculates the ETA to your desired destination and draws up the fastest route to your destination. It uses data received from other Wazers who have the app running to estimate time of arrival and show roads that heavy with traffic. Furthermore, you have the option of voice navigation with interesting options. You can have the normal Amy, or Nathan but there is also the option of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Colonel Sanders, which I have to admit are kinda funny!

In my opinion, navigation was on point other than one time where it actually suggested I cross over to the other side of the road without considering #KideroGrass or the lack of an actual road. The ETA was pretty accurate as it adjusts to changes in traffic. This works well because of the use of real time data.

Clearly, Waze will rival Ma3Route in traffic management. As much as Ma3Route has a wide base of users and is very social (I miss that in Waze), Waze makes more sense as a driving companion. Being a community based application, you can chat with other Wazers and get more information about the roads. With many users on Waze, this could bring a social aspect to it.

Additionally, you do not need to  scroll down a long list of tweets to get information about your road, Waze will customize updates to your route. It offers visuals on the intensity of traffic so that you can make an informed decision. Again, using Waze, you do not need to leave the app in order to be directed to your destination as with Ma3Route. Everything you need is within the app which makes life easier when driving.

You earn points on Waze for various things such as reporting about traffic or road closures. Since you can connect Waze to Facebook, it can show you how you rank among your friends and among other Wazers globally.

Waze will run in the background even when you leave the app, so when you get to your destination, remember to exit the application.

Conclusion

With all that in mind, I did at times find myself looking back at Ma3Route, just to get more information and pictures and lets be honest, some tweets and reports are just plain funny. Ma3Route have something that they can work on in order to improve their service, but personally Waze wins it for me. Any Wazers out there? What’s your experience?

Read On Web → App Review: Waze App

My issues with cheap smartphones are well documented and since there are few low-cost decent options, I usually gravitate towards those. With the Samsung Galaxy J5, I have a reason to recommend a device I deem decent for everyday use that is also reasonably priced. Galaxy J5 is positioned as the mid range device that changes dynamics in the value proposition. Mid range has for most of the time meant compromised experience. J5, just like J7 above it and J1 below it try to close that gap. And they do it well. I’ve had this device for a whole of two weeks and we have something conclusive about it we can tell you.

Design

The Galaxy J5 has a metal frame encasing what is essentially a plastic back that can be removed to reveal a 2,600 mAh battery, two SIM slots (one nano and another micro) and a glass front that packs the “just fine” 5 inch Super AMOLED display. The camera, LED flash and the speaker lie next to each other on the upper part of the back of the device while the 3.5 mm audio jack is placed at the bottom. Some people like it there while others like it at the top. To each their own.

The Galaxy J5, with a 5 inch display, is a big smartphone but doesn’t feel like it. It fits in. Probably because I am used to dealing with big smartphones. It may be a challenge for folks upgrading to the J5 from smaller displays but not for long. Thanks to the curves on the device, you start feeling at home in no time.

Camera

The Galaxy J5’s main selling point is supposed to be the camera. As I found out, while it strives to act the part, it is not yet there. Yes it has a 13 megapixel camera at the back and a rather powerful 5 megapixel camera with a f/1.9 aperture but good shots when you remove the phone from your back pocket and using auto mode are not guaranteed. You’ll need to struggle a bit to get things right. The front-facing shooter which is the first of its kind on a Samsung smartphone (bar the bigger Galaxy J7, of course) thanks to the front LED is just that, another selfie camera. You can take advantage of the wide angle lens but not the flash on the front. In more ways I was disappointed than found it functional. Other than for the purposes of this review where I had to use it, I mostly left it alone and just took selfies the normal way. That way, the selfies are fine.

Touch focus and face-detection function as expected.

I found the main camera to be really good when taking photos outdoors in good lighting. It’s a different story in low light situations even though this is where the camera was supposed to reveal its shine.

Sample photo taken with the Galaxy J5 at the Museum Hill interchange in Nairobi

Performance

The Galaxy J5 has a quad-core Qualcomm-made Snapdragon 410 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz. That coupled with the 1.5 GB RAM the phone packs and the well-optimized Android 5.1.1 with TouchWiz leaves a very fast device that pretty much handles anything you throw at it with grace. There are no stutters and no lag as is characteristic of Samsung smartphones that are priced within the range that the Galaxy J5 operates. Operations are so smooth that from time to time you may wonder whether you paid just Ksh 21,000 for such. This is what lower mid-range smartphones ought to be like. Nothing less, of course who are we not to be glad if it even got better?

Double-clicking the home button at any instance fires up the camera application by default. This happens in an instant. Again, no stuttering.

Software

As already stated, the Galaxy J5 runs on the latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop hidden layers below thanks to the various customizations Samsung has made to the software to deliver the experience it envisions to the customer. In most instances, bar the premium smartphones like the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and the Note 5, on low-cost smartphones this usually means reduced performance and so many issues. It is not the case on the Galaxy J5 and users get to experience the best of Samsung software on the most budget (reasonably) of Samsung hardware. Add to the fact that you can now go to the Samsung Themes Store to tweak the looks of the device to your taste and you have a winner.

Battery

The Galaxy J5 will easily last you a full work day under normal use. That time, as I pointed out before, will be shortened depending on your usage patterns but for the most part, you won’t need to plug it in before 8 hours elapse. And when it does, you may need to take a walk, sleep or do something else because it takes a while to go from 0 to 100%. You can’t expect quick-charging on such a bargain device but you don’t have to withstand the pain of having to wait much longer before the phone is all juiced up and ready for another round of selfies and Whatsapps.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy J5 is the best smartphone for its price but it could be better.

I’ll overlook the fact that the cameras could’ve been excellent but are only “okay” because for the price of the phone, I really don’t have such high expectations but I feel they could’ve done more. More pixels doesn’t always mean a better camera and this shows in the Galaxy J5’s shooters.

You can only buy the 8 GB version in Kenya at the moment for Ksh 21,000 but I really wish the 16 GB version was available but that would mean the price going up then, no? I guess I can’t have my cake and eat it but the baseline is that the 8 GB internal storage available on the smartphone as advertised is scanty. It even gets scanty when you power up the device for the first time and realize you have a little over 4 GB left for installing applications, storing photos and other use cases. You have the microSD as a redeeming factor since you can install apps to external storage and even have app data also stored on it.

Besides the price, what else do you look for in a smartphone? The Galaxy J5 has an okay 5 inch Super AMOLED HD display, speakers that sound just fine and are loud enough, acceptable call quality, well-optimised software, “just okay” cameras and a battery that will be sure to have at least 5% left by the time you get back home in the evening. The point is, as a package, the Galaxy J5 is a deal. Individual components may not meet the high bar we set for just about any smartphone premium or entry level but in the case of the Galaxy J5, its strength lies in it being a single product that is the sum of functioning parts.

The good

• 4G/LTE capability
• Good battery life
• Excellent performance. The phone feels fast when you use it and you know what? It actually is fast!

The bad

• Memory. Memory. Memory. 8 GB is not enough on such a fantastic phone.

Read On Web → Samsung Galaxy J5: Finally a Decent Mid-Range Device That Doesn’t Break the Bank

You know those rare feel-good moments that you get when the stars align and everything feels right in the world again, even for just one second, either when you take a bite of your favorite home-made food or you hear that song that always brings a smile on your face. Well, that happened to me recently when I installed Stash. With millions and millions of Android apps in the Google Play Store, only a handful of applications that really invoke that feeling in the user and Stash is one of them. Now that I have your attention, let me tell you why Stash makes me feel all good inside.

For starters, it is Kenyan made, suited for our market and made by young brilliant minds who met at Egerton University studying Computer Science. Secondly, its a life saver. You now those pesky USSD codes that crop up almost daily and they expect you to have some kind of database in your head to remember all of them, or those pay bill numbers that drive you in panic mode since you cant remember and your DSTV subscription is up and you know you wrote it down somewhere but can not remember where and when you try going online to search for it, you realize you don’t have bundles and you cannot remember the USSD code to buy bundles because you are using a new line! Stash is here to save the day.

A pilot Android application created by a startup called Chowders Loft, Stash is designed to bundle up all your common USSD codes into an easy to use application. Not only is it simple and user friendly, it actually works! It saves you the obvious hustle of searching, remembering and the best part, dialing the codes yourself.

User Experience

This is a very easy application to use. Once installed, all you need to do is choose your preferred network operator and all the current USSD codes used in the network are instantly made available for you. If you have more than one line however, you can still view the USSD codes of any other network from the application’s menu.

One thing that I absolutely appreciate about the application is that it is beautifully designed. The developers kept material design in mind, making the application feel modern and relevant. The colors work well together and there is fluidity as you move from page to page.

Furthermore, there are no ads in this application, as it is 100% free, making the experience clean and devoid of distractions from ad pop ups.

Features

This is an application that does what it says on the box. On the home page, you get a list of services usually accessed by USSD codes with a small description of the same. Selecting one of the services automatically runs the code for you as you would have done on your dial pad, and a response is received as it usually is. For codes that prompt the user to choose more options, a simple pop up customized for each of the codes allows the user to input data.

Other than the storing of codes, there is a tab called services. This has a list of some accounts that use pay bill numbers for payment. These range from paying for your DSTV subscriptions, paying your electricity bill or buying the prepaid tokens. Once you choose a service, it gives you a pop up with a detailed step-by -step process on how to pay for the service. Long gone are the days that you have to remember each and every pay bill number for different services, which I have to admit can be frustrating if you don’t have the sharpest memory.

There is one other feature that I am not too sure about but in my own interpretation, I can add the USSD codes that I frequently use with my own descriptions for, again, faster access. I set the application in such a way that when I open it, this page comes up first and I can immediately run my desired USSD code, other than going to the home page and scrolling through the list entire to get the service I want. Very convenient.

Conclusion

This is a wonderful application, period! It does what it says it will, and does it beautifully and efficiently. It is such a simple idea, executed brilliantly. One thing that I may have mentioned and it is important to note is that this application is completely FREE. No ads, no premium version, no subscription, nothing, 100% free. When asked, the developer says that they did this just to show everyone what they are about. They wanted to show people that quality applications can be developed in Kenya without their being a catch, and I commend them for this. Sometimes, its not all about the money.

Seriously, if you haven’t tried out your multitasking skills by downloading the application right after you started reading this, then you are too slow. Get it from the play store here it’s currently only available as an Android app.

The allure of Android One, as we have stated countless times before, is a pure unadulterated experience on a smartphone. Users don’t get slowed down by unnecessary elements added to the software by the smartphone maker. Neither do they have to live with ugly interfaces and cartoon-like app icons all in the name of being provided with “value add-ons”. But what if you get an Android One smartphone that packs the stock untouched Android experience as envisioned by Google but still has all the signs of lag and stutter that shouldn’t be there?

That has been my experience with the Infinix Hot 2, the first Android One smartphone to hit the African market. It’s good for its price. There’s no denying that. I was very impressed at first and while my experience as a user of the device over the last fortnight hasn’t convinced me that this is a smartphone I’d want to get for myself, my opinion that it is our favourite low-end smartphone in the Kenyan market remains unchanged.

Specifications

• Display: 5 inch HD (720p)
• Processor: Quad-core MediaTek MT6580 chip clocked at 1.3 GHz
• Memory: 1 GB RAM; 16 GB onboard storage (expandable via microSD)
• Camera: Front: 2 megapixels; Back: 8 megapixels with LED flash
• Operating System: Android 5.1.1
• Battery: 2,200mAh
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
• Network: 3G
• Others: FM radio, Dual-SIM

Poor Man’s Nexus

Android One has been cheekily christened “poor man’s Nexus” by my friends in the West and rightfully so. We’ve just seen the 2015 Nexus smartphones from Huawei and LG made official by Google. While those are pricey, both buyers of the Nexus 5X and 6P will have something in common with the Infinix Hot 2: they get timely updates.

The new Nexus smartphones will of course arrive with the latest treat from Mountain View, Android Marshmallow, but the Infinix Hot 2 and others in the Android One program are expected to get it not long after. Yes, even before those swanky $800 smartphones you’ve been yearning to get. Poor man’s Nexus or not, that’s a huge plus for a smartphone as basic as the Infinix Hot 2 and it is one of its selling points. So much that one of the first things you get upon unboxing the device and powering it on for the very first time is, you guessed it right, an update, albeit for stability and bug fixes.

Design

The Infinix Hot 2 looks and feels like a small plastic slab. Bar that 5 inch HD display on the front, the Hot 2 is a full plastic device through and through. There’s some glass-like plastic on the back that is a fingerprint magnet and prone to scratches if you put the phone in the same pants pocket as your keys. They’ll scratch the hell out of it.

Since I said it feels like a small plastic slab, that is not just as a result of the looks. It’s also because of the weight. The Infinix Hot 2 is not light like you may have gotten used to on recent smartphone releases. It is quite heavy but since at 5 inches the screen is bigger, that weight makes it nicer to hold in the hand and you actually feel like you’re using a phone. Seriously.

The USB port is placed at the top of the device and not the bottom. The speakers on the bottom of the device are just fine and perform as expected. Sound is crisp but could of course get better. However, like the earpiece on top, dust tends to collect down there and you may need to manually clean it from time to time.

There’s an LED on the front for alerting you when you have unread messages, missed calls and other notifications. There are no physical or capacitive keys so instead you have on-screen buttons since this is a pure Android experience device.

The volume rocker is on the right of the device and just below it is the power button.

Display

The 5 inch HD display is good enough for casual needs. You’ll be okay texting on the large display and even consuming media. Just the basics.

The viewing angles are not the best and outdoor visibility is a big problem. Since the Infinix Hot runs stock Android, you get some setbacks like not having automatic brightness settings so you’ll have to go back to the slider on the notification shade when you switch environments from indoors to outdoors.

There’s no form of protection on the display so if you happen to drop the device on a hard surface, it’ll be up to your lucky stars to determine its fate. You’ll mostly end up with either a shattered display panel or a very scratched back.

Camera

There’s not much to write home about when it comes to the Infinix Hot 2’s camera. This is because it is pretty basic. It does its work as you may expect of a camera on a $90 phone.

You can get some popping average shots using the 8 megapixel back camera and really grainy selfies when using the 2 megapixel front-facing camera. There’s hardly any middle ground. In good lighting conditions, the images captured are bearable else there’s too much noise. It is worse when you take photos in low light conditions. Yes, even with the flash turned on.

Here is a sample photo:

More sample images (including a high resolution version of the above sample) can be found here.

Software

Stock Android. Android 5.1.1 Lollipop.

While stock Android should be something attractive and all, sadly on low-end devices like I have experienced on the Infinix Hot 2, it is not. I’ll explain.

The Infinix Hot 2 is a smartphone meant mostly for entry-level users. Users on a budget. These just want a device that functions well out of the box. No bells and whistles. For the most part, stock Android provides all that. Until you get to the bit where there’s no gallery application that users can identify with. Neither is there a half-decent camera application or a music app (I know, Google Play Music, but no, thanks).

On stock Android you get Google’s camera app which is pretty barebones. Like we’ve seen on low-cost devices from the Tecno and Infinix brands, more functionality can be added to the camera application that users can take advantage of. Google Photos is the default photo application. Again, this is pretty basic and while most of us know what to get off it, ordinary users will be best served by just a simple gallery app. Something like QuickPic for instance.

Other issues that arise as a result of using stock Android includes the lack of a mute/vibrate switch. Ordinarily, users are able to switch to various sound profiles conveniently but under Android Lollipop this is not possible as they are limited to just barring notifications for a set duration (a maximum of 8 hours).

An advantage of stock Android on the other hand, is that you don’t get a lot of the annoying add-ons that tend to be bundled with devices like the Infinix Hot 2. Applications that you’re likely to never use. Like Palm Chat and others. There are only two applications outside of Google’s that are bundled on the phone: CarlCare, an app for accessing after-sales service, and Jumia, the online marketplace that Google and Infinix partnered with to sell the Hot 2 across the continent.

Another plus is that you get to do things like add multiple accounts. So you can set up a guest account for your nosy girlfriend to access or another account for your child to play games without interfering with your phone. Since this is a very affordable phone, multiple use cases are well served under such a setting and it is a good thing.

Performance

You’d expect that a device with the most minimum of software alterations would be very snappy and not exhibit any lag, right? Well, you’re wrong. For some strange reasons (optimization perhaps), the Infinix Hot 2 stutters and hangs randomly. It is not annoying and if you don’t spend a lot of your time fiddling with your phone like I do you’ll hardly notice but it is bad enough to make you want to pull out your hair.

Other than the random stuttering, everything else seems fine. I was able to enjoy Asphalt 8: Airborne and for a moment I forgot that I was doing this on a low-cost device. With the stuttering, you may not want to overload it because it won’t handle things well but overall things will be should be just fine.

Battery

Just like the camera, the battery life is neither here nor there. The Infinix Hot 2 is a dual-SIM device and if you take advantage of this and have cellular data turned on most of the time then you’ll need to charge the phone way before the day ends. With minimal use, though, you can manage to squeeze a bit more out of it (you’ll be wise not to count on it).

Normally, there’s some power saving mode of sorts on phones like Infinix Hot 2. However, since this runs stock Android, you’re stuck with the useless stock power saving mode which won’t come to your aid when the battery drops below 10% at midday.

The Good

• Stock Android. This means updates, updates and more updates. Guaranteed updates. I can’t wait to test Android Marshmallow on the Infinix Hot 2. Yes, stock Android has its shortcomings but it is way better than the ugly user interfaces you’re bound to find on just about every other Android smartphone.
• Lots of storage space. It is not every day that you get an entry level device with 16 GB onboard storage (and expandable via microSD at that). To some people, 16 GB may not be much but you only need to have used other low-cost phones like the awfully priced Oppo Neo 3 that has just 4 GB memory with just under half of it being user accessible to appreciate what the Infinix Hot 2 brings to the table.
• The price, of course. At Kshs 9,000, you can’t debate getting this over any other Android device. Unless that other device is the fantastic Tecno Boom J7 or the more “senior” Infinix Hot Note. The only problem? You’ll need to add Ksh 1,000-4,000 more to get either of those and when you’re on a tight budget that is not a luxury you have. Note: Kshs 9,000 is the price if you order the device via Jumia. Walking into any retail shop, you’re likely to find the device priced between Kshs 11,000 and 12,000. At that point, dynamics change.

The Bad

• The lag! It is annoying when you encounter it. I only had a handful of apps installed and still experienced it. I have no idea what happens when you stretch the device.
• The battery life could be better but it isn’t.

Final Thoughts

For the longest time ever, it has been hard to find a sub-Ksh 10,000 smartphone running Android worth recommending.

With the Infinix Hot 2, now there’s finally a device one can comfortably recommend at that price range. Only that there are few disclaimers. Like battery life is not guaranteed and as is the case with just about every other low-cost smartphone, corners have been cut in order to guarantee the low pricing. You can see that in the washed out display, the not-so-good camera and the lack of seamlessness you’d expect between hardware and software. However, unlike every other low-cost smartphone that has corners cut to justify the low pricing, the Infinix Hot 2 promises to cater for its user just like Google will take care of someone who spends Ksh 65,000 on a 128 GB Huawei Nexus 6P.

Android One is meant to bring to the smartphone fold the next 1 billion Android users according to Google as it seeks to increase Android’s dominance as well as getting everyone online where they’ll obviously get to use its services. Currently, Android has over 1.4 billion users and with devices like the Infinix Hot 2, its appeal is bound to get even better to the unconnected masses and just about everyone who wants a good deal.