I feel like I’m constantly around Infinix phones these days, so much so that it is hard to tell them apart. I am tempted to label them with masking tape. At first sight the Infinix Hot 3 doesn’t look all too different. You could easily brush it of as just another Infinix, but I feel like it leaves more of a mark than any other. The last Infinix that left any kind of impression on me was the Infinix Zero 2.

So why is the rather low budget Infinix Hot 3 memorable?

Design

Face up this phone is not impressive in any way, it looks exactly like every other Infinix. What is even worse is that the captive buttons are not backlit. Isn’t this part of a phone’s basic needs? It is very off -putting. But if you take time and lift the phone up, you begin to appreciate some design points.

I have the Space Grey version (I thought space was black? Or is there another ‘space’, always wondered) which I have to admit I like. Grey plastic looks good. Another good point is that the back has some texture to it, little diagonal ridges that increase grip and provide the perfect scratch point if you want to annoy your friends.

Additionally, the back curves in at the edges making it wonderfully comfortable to hold in the hand. There is no metal in the form factor of this phone, whether faux or real. It is unapologetically plastic and beautiful. Now that is memorable for a device as low priced as this one.

The speaker can be found at the back behind a tiny speaker grill cut out. Expected results, crappy sound, right? WRONG! That speaker is in one word, impressive. It is not only loud but when playing music, you can hear the crispness and depth to the tracks. I am not a fan of back speakers because they spell frustration when placed down on the table. That is not the case with the Infinix. There are little bump on the edges of the speaker that when placed on a flat surface, prevent the speaker from being muffled, just like those bumps on the bottom of a laptop. Awesome right?

Can you see them?

So it looks good on the outside for its low price, what about the inside?

One word. Unexpected.

It has a 5.5 inch 720p HD screen, which is amazingly crisp. The colours really pop and the screen is very vibrant. I mean you can see individual pixels but not too much for it to ruin the experience. Many displays of phones around this price point are very disappointing, mostly washed out with high contrast levels. Not this one guys. This one is different. It is impressive.

Hardware

The spec sheet of the Infinix Hot 3 is nothing impressive. It has a Quad core processor clocked at 1.3 GHz, 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB internal storage. You cannot expect it to be super-fast and snappy but at least you can hope for a usable experience with minimal lag.

If you do not push it too much, then you will get that. You will be satisfied. There is almost no lag swiping from screen to screen, opening up applications, closing them and moving on to others. The key point here is not to push it way too much.

Game play is possible. For heavy games, make sure it’s the only app running, close any background apps that you are not using and you can play your game in peace. Simple games that don’t require too much RAM are a joy to play, combining the display and sound quality.

Now the camera brings you back to reality. The 8MP rear camera can work very well with the right conditions. So long as the day is bright and the camera lens is not hindered by fingerprints, you can take some wonderful shots. In twilight and darkness, the LED flash just manages to blast too much light and the photo processing is very sub par. The 2MP selfie camera on the other hand is just a whole other story. It tries too much to put on beauty filter even when I put it to the lowest setting. There is a smoky overlay no matter what which I mean is simply not flattering. So if I were I would stick with the back camera, even for selfies.

Software

The Infinix Hot 3 comes with XUI version 1.H.0.1 with Android 5.1 Lollipop at the base. I am not a big fan of OEM overlays as this always translates to bloat ware, and the Hot 3 has a lot of it. I counted 10 preloaded XUI applications combined with a flurry of other preloaded apps just creating a lot of duplication. More often than not you will find yourself using and downloading Google applications and completely ignoring all the rest. Apps like backup and reset and system update are features that you can access anyway in the settings, so I do not understand why they need to be separate apps. Duplication. The only X I might open is XClub. This is a forum for Infinix users so it’s a good place to talk and discuss Infinix things, ask questions and get solutions for your device.

So if you do not like the general look of XUI overlay and you do not want to go searching for an alternative launcher like I did, there is an app there that allows you to change up the appearance of your phone. Why not channel your phone goals by slapping on an iOS theme? Trick some blind fellas!

I can surprisingly stand the software. I do not mind looking at it actually. My biggest problem with it is the notification bar. Unless you love green and everything around you is green, you wear green, you eat green, and you sleep green (too far?) you will get bothered by it. When you drag down the bar, its background goes green. At least it has different gradient levels making it at least look progressive but it’s not supposed to be like that. It just shouldn’t. Check out the video to understand what I mean.

Battery & Connectivity

Could be better.

It has a 3000mAh battery which is satisfactory at best. Not outstanding. With heavy usage you can barely make a full day’s worth of charge. With fewer on screen time, moderate gaming and browsing you can wait till morning to charge it. But unless I left it uncharged and take out the SIM card, I could not manage 2 days with charge. You can stretch that time by employing the use of the battery saver and when you are very desperate, there is an Ultra lower power mode.

Conclusion with just a little bump, it could get better.

It has the usual connectivity channels, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G and 2G. It has dual SIM capabilities which is expected in our market. But the call quality is questionable. Remember how good I said the speaker was, well something happens when your phone rings. The Ringtones sound as if they are coming from a superficial phone in a whole other dimension. Until you see the screen light up, you might just assume it’s not yours. This has more to do with the quality of available ringtones, so as much as I do not do this, I considered placing a track instead. But I digress.

My real quarrel is with the call quality. The sound is pretty low, even on high volume and also sounds muffled. Woe on to you if you are in an area with sketchy net where your phone should try making the sound good. It won’t happen here. Either the person on the other end won’t here you clearly or you won’t hear them so well.

But it might just have been my individual unit.

Conclusion

This Infinix is very memorable, at least to me. In a sea of many budget phones, some that you rather didn’t see the light of day, the Infinix manages to hold its own. For a price tag of Kshs 7,899 available on Kilimall, it gives you way more than you can anticipate.

Low budget phones are getting better and better this year, first with the Cubot Note S, which I still use and now this.

If you forget the Infinix Hot 2 ever happened (it aged badly) you can find hope that Infinix are on the right track of making budget phones desirable.

I like:

• The design. It handles plastic well.
• The display almost fools you to imagine you are using an expensive device.
• The performance is not awful.
• The price. It is a bargain.

Not a big fan of:

• The cameras, specifically the front shooter. No
• The battery can be better is all I’ll say there

Read On Web → Infinix Hot 3 Review: Budget Just Became Desirable

During my visit to Hong Kong and China this week, I had the rare chance of meeting HTC’s Associate Vice President of Virtual Reality, Raymond Pao, on the sidelines of the second phase of the Power Briefing sessions at the 2016 IFA Global Conference in Shenzhen, China. According to him, we have not even scratched the surface when it comes to the endless possibilities brought about by virtual reality and the expected natural shift to augmented reality, a view held by many in the industry.

In order to explore and get to learn more about the steps HTC is taking to make sure that it stays ahead of the curve, Mr Pao extended an invitation to visit the offices of VIA Technologies (Viatech), its partner, in the upmarket Nanshan District of Shenzhen municipality and get to play with the Vive, HTC’s first virtual reality product.

Viatech is a Taiwanese company, just like HTC, that specializes in supplying components and parts in most electronic devices we use, including those from HTC and other popular consumer electronics brands.

Back to the Vive, it is, at the moment, the best virtual reality gear I have tested so far. To be fair, maybe my opinion of the Vive may change if and when I get to play with the Oculus Rift. I have previously tried out the Oculus Rift when it was still under testing as the Development Kit (1 and 2) and the experience then, while unique and exciting, still left room for improvement. That should have changed now that the Oculus Rift final build model is out.

Like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive requires a powerful computer in order to function. Very expensive tech is at play here. You will definitely need to part with over $1,000 by way of a new purchase or upgrading your current custom PC setup in order to get the Vive working. At the very least, one needs a machine with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 970 video card and a fourth-generation Intel Core i5 processor (4590) or something similar among other requirements.

Also, like its rival from Facebook-owned Oculus, the HTC Vive does not come cheap. At $800 for every unit, the Vive is way too expensive, something that is likely to deter anyone but avid tech enthusiasts to spend all that money on a first generation product.

The HTC Vive is heavy, a bit too heavy than you would expect if you have gotten used to mobile virtual reality headsets like the Samsung Gear VR, made in conjunction with Oculus no less. However, all that, and the dangling wires from the PC, seem to disappear when you have the bulky head mounted display all over your face and the two motion controllers that HTC is bundling with every purchase of the Vive in your hands.

While the sensors in the head gear track your head movements resulting in interactions with the simulated virtual world, the hand-held controllers provide further interaction. The motion controllers provide users with the ability to almost literally “touch” objects in the virtual world which enhances the kind of immersion in another world that virtual reality is meant to provide. For instance, in a shooting game that I played, the two controllers acted as the ammunition for killing World War Z-like zombies. In another instance, the controllers acted as pen and paint brush as I put to use my poor artistry skills.

Other than the motion controllers, HTC also bundles a pair of earbuds with the Vive. There’s no much to say about them other than that anyone in a position to buy the Vive will definitely know better and get a more decent pair of headsets for use with the Vive. They are like the headphones they give you on the plane for in-flight entertainment: they do their job but you’d rather bring along your own trusted pair for better sound and all. Luckily, I got to use a more decent pair of headsets that ensured that my experience was not degraded.

Below are photos of the HTC Vive from my first ever interaction with the device. Hopefully, I will get to fully review it one day – when I finally upgrade to a better computer, for now, it’s impossible.

The Vive is available for pre-order in a handful of markets and your best chance at getting a unit is likely waiting till it is all over popular e-commerce sites where you can order one from since it is likely to never be available in your country soon, at least on an official basis.

Read On Web → First Hands on with HTC Vive, the Virtual Reality Headset Everyone Wants

Only very few apps ever make it to my home screen. Safaricom’s new MySafaricom app earns its place on mine. It packs features I use all the time. Now the task at hand is to find space for it.

Everyone has those 4, 5 or 6 apps they are always accessing. In order to circumvent the long process of going to the application drawer and flipping through horizontally or scrolling vertically through a long list of other apps every other time, we all resort to doing one thing: pinning them on our smartphone’s home screens. That may be directly or indirectly by grouping them with other similar apps in folders (like say if it is Facebook then you bundle it with Twitter and Instagram – social apps). There’s one new application that may tempt you to do that and it’s from the least expected of quarters: Safaricom.

The MySafaricom application has not been around for long, it’s very new. However what has me rooting for it to have a home on your home screen is its practicality. Simply put, Safaricom has made it easy to have a quick glance at all the services you are subscribed to and gather just as much as you would want without making a fuss about it. You know, you no longer have to remember that USSD code for checking your data bundle balance.

For us who have been using our Safaricom lines for like forever, this is a non-issue since we know all the basic Safaricom USSD codes by heart. However, for every other foreigner walking into a Safaricom Shop booth at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport or anywhere else in the country to get a nano SIM card for their iPhone, this is a big deal. Very big deal. With just an app and a data connection, every user is able to view their loyalty bonus points (Bonga) balance, their credit balance and the remaining megabytes or gigabytes on their subscribed data plan.

Even better, you can subscribe to several Safaricom services. Like Safaricom’s SMS bundles.

I must send a Twitter direct message to Safaricom’s customer care team every other New Year’s eve to ask them to remind me of the short code for subscribing to Safaricom’s SMS bundles. Really, I do that. New Year’s eve is the only time of the year when I realize that despite WhatsApp almost being a standard means of texting everyone in my life, I still have a boatload of phone contacts who, though on WhatsApp, respond faster to SMS than online chats. So much for being “digital”.

Being a time of the year when most people I associate with have retreated to their rural homes in upcountry and have little to no access to a cellular data connection, traditional SMS is the most convenient and reasonable way to wish people good tidings in the new year without sounding like a confused millennial. Yet I don’t know the most basic facilitator of that: *188#. Thanks to the new MySafaricom app, Safaricom’s customer care team won’t miss my nagging enquiries minutes to midnight on December 31^st, 2016. So long ^MK, ^MM and team!

SMS bundle activation aside, you can do basics like topping up and buying data. Airtime and data bundle sambaza is also there. Easy and fast. Also, the application, under the ‘My Profile’ section, allows users to view the PUK of the SIM they are using. Go to Safaricom’s customer care feed on Twitter and you’ll most likely find an enquiry by a user on how they can find out their PUK since not all of us ever bother to keep that card once we’ve slotted in the SIM.

Safaricom sent me a broadcast message some time back informing me that I could now register to have my M-PESA statements sent to me via email monthly. Nice! Like most other people, I quickly opened my phone’s dial pad to key in the short code specified in the text (*234*2#) only for it to, as fate would have it, not work. The code crashed. Maybe something was broken on Safaricom’s end or every other person who had received the broadcast message was doing the same thing and the system was overwhelmed… I had no idea. I just never bothered again.

Until today when I tried out the MySafaricom app and it reminded me that I could step outside my M-Ledger cocoon for a moment and have a peek at a better way to track my M-PESA transactions that does not involve queuing for hours at Safaricom’s Shop at I&M building. I keyed in my mobile phone number and my email address and about half a minute later there was a text message from Safaricom informing me that I will, henceforth, be receiving my M-PESA statements via email by the 5^th of every month. A minute later, another text message arrived informing me that my M-PESA statement for the last 6 months had been dispatched to my inbox. Those messages arrived at 10.49AM and 10.50AM respectively. The email also landed at 10.50AM. Fast!

Safaricom may have taken forever to make applications I want to use and tell people to use (previous ones like the Safaricom App Store and others like MyMarket leave a lot to be desired) but it nailed it with the MySafaricom application. It’s visually appealing and actually works as intended.

Now that Safaricom has shown that it listens and does respond in spectacular fashion while also moving with the times, how long until we have an application similar to MySafaricom but for M-PESA? I’m now speaking as a Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 user who has to swap devices in order to use M-PESA on another phone with the SIM toolkit working.

Is this the end of the road for third party applications that had flooded the Google Play Store offering easy ways of using short codes like STASH?

Read On Web → Safaricom’s New MySafaricom App Earns its Place on Your Smartphone’s Home Screen

There’s something new in the Kenyan device market. It’s called the Remix Mini. You may or may not have heard about it but that’s why we are here.

Remix Mini is made by Jide Technology, a Chinese startup founded by three former Google employees Jeremy Chau, Ben Luk and David Ko. It rose to prominence when it first took the Mini to crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to raise funds. It managed to raise $1.6 million, blowing past the $50,000 initial target.

The Remix Mini, in short, is a low-cost miniature computer. It’s a small soap-like device with several ports at the back to make it easy to connect to a monitor. Its makers describe it as “the world’s first true Android PC”. It runs on Remix OS, a version of the Android operating system that has been customized heavily to make it easier for desktop-class computing needs.

You can try out Remix OS on your current computer as well by downloading it and installing it to a spare partition then dual-booting. It’s a great way of breathing new life to older machines other than the tried and tested way of installing Ubuntu or some other Linux distro if running Chrome OS does not appeal to you.

Back to the Remix Mini, it is one of several products that Jide Technology has introduced in various markets including tablets and accessories. In Kenya, like in Nigeria and South Africa, the company is bringing the Remix Mini. The Mini is not that new to the country as some of its backers on Kickstarter were Kenyans and were among those who had over 30,000 units shipped to them globally.

The Remix Mini is available in two options: there’s a 1 GB RAM, 8 GB onboard storage model and a 2 GB RAM, 16 GB onboard storage model. Only the latter will be sold in Kenya though. It will go for Kshs 10,000. However, the early birds can take advantage of the promotional launch offer price of Kshs 5,000 (50% discount). The device will be sold via Jumia. The discounted price tag is one of the reasons that this could be a thing around here. It uses Android, which most people who have smartphones and tablets are bound to be familiar with and only needs a monitor/TV set with HDMI input and at least a working internet connection (either ethernet or Wi-Fi).

There are several media streaming boxes in the Kenyan market running Android at similar or higher price points. There are also the likes of Google’s Chromecast, the Roku Stick and other dongles that those interested have been able to either import directly from abroad or buy from third parties at exorbitant rates. Other than not supporting cellular networks, the Remix Mini, when used solely as a media streamer (you can download YouTube and Netflix from the Play Store or load them on the Chrome browser which is pre-installed), sounds like something we’ve seen previously, function-wise. Only that in this case, the software is more polished and you can actually do more with it like hook your gaming pads and fire up a game or write an article like this one when you plug in a keyboard.

I have been interacting with the Remix Mini for a while now and will dive further in an upcoming review to see how practical the Remix Mini is in getting some work done since it is a small PC, right? So watch out for that in coming days.

In the meantime, here are a couple of photos to drool over:

This article has been updated to reflect the Kshs 10,000 price tag of the Remix Mini and the promotional price.

Read On Web → Remix Mini: ‘The World’s First True Android PC’ is Coming to Kenya

Budget smartphones have been getting better and better as time goes by. Smartphone components are not only being produced cheaply, they are also getting better. This translates to the better quality of smartphones that are released over time.

This year, we have received a number of budget smartphones but I want to compare two that I have personally used expansively. These include the Infinix Hot 3 and the Cubot Note S

Both of these smartphones are sub Kshs 10,000 being sold on the popular eCommerce site Kilimall, which makes them as cheap as they can be given no retail mark-ups.

In my review, I described the Cubot Note S as a device for the young who want a pretty cool device without the need to spend a whole lot of money to do so. I still feel like the Cubot Note S gives you that luxury, especially with the cool tribal design of the interchangeable back covers.

“I like the Cubot Note S. It feels good, it looks good and it works just fine. Its not the perfect device but you get a lot for that price. Even with all the sacrifices that went on to make this device cheap and accessible, it still turned out to be a device that offers you a good smartphone experience.”

Read the full review here: Cubot Note S Review: Remake of A Budget Smartphone

The Infinix Hot 3 was released later and thankfully, it was something different from the Android one device, Infinix Hot 2, which did not age all too well. This time we have a design as well as software refresh. Coming in at Kshs 7,899 it is the cheaper of the two and a pretty good package as well.

“This Infinix is very memorable, at least to me. In a sea of many budget phones, some that you rather didn’t see the light of day, the Infinix manages to hold its own… it gives you way more than you can anticipate.”

Read full review here: Infinix Hot 3 Review:Budget Just Became Desirable

So which of these is the better deal? Watch this video to figure that out!

If you haven’t voted for us yet, well get voting. we have been nominated for 2 blog awards, best technology blog and blog of the year, so support us and vote here. Deadline is on Monday, 1st May 2016

Read On Web → Infinix Hot 3 vs Cubot Note S: Which One Should You Buy?

Everyone whose life revolves around reviewing devices like smartphones will tell you that 2016 is the year when the high-end smartphone suffers the most thanks to the rise of the super mid-range smartphone. I have already written much about that which you can read here.

That change in dynamics is being spearheaded by smartphone brands and companies you have likely never heard of. This is because unlike global smartphone powerhouses like Samsung, Apple and Huawei, those brands are mainly regional and have regional focus. They are there in India, they are there in China, they are there in the Middle East and you’ll find them in plenty all over Kenya. To counter them, a rethink in how the established smartphone brands approach emerging markets was needed.

In the case of Huawei, that didn’t require much effort. The Chinese device maker had already built its reputation both at home and abroad in the unlikeliest of markets like in Europe as a serious maker of budget smartphones. This it achieved mainly through the concerted efforts of its subsidiary, Honor, which oversees the Honor smartphone brand.

In markets where Huawei is not aggressively pushing the Honor brand, how does it manage to keep with the Joneses?

Samsung has its exquisite lineup of flashy upper midrange devices in the Galaxy A (2016) range. How does Huawei keep up in a market where the average smartphone buyer is very price sensitive and who the company needs if it is to score 25% market share by mid-2016?

The G series is the answer. Actually, it has been the answer for a while now. In the last few years, Huawei has relied on the Ascend G6, the Ascend G7 and the G8 to drive its mid-range smartphone.

In early 2016, just before it settles down and tries to get as many people as possible to sample its new state of the art P9 smartphones, Huawei has several flashy mid-range smartphones it wants to sell you. They include the GR5 and the GR3.

I have spent nearly a month now with one of those midrange smartphones, the GR5, the best of the two, and herein you’ll find my experiences with it in detail.

The GR5 is the Honor 5X by another name

In the box

The Huawei GR5’s packaging is very simple. Just a white box with the device, a pair of earphones (that are really good (sound-wise) by the way but a little bit uncomfortable), a SIM ejection tool, a USB cable, a fast charging power adaptor and some user manuals.

Specifications

• Size and weight: 151.3 x 76.3 x 8.15 mm, 158g
• Display: 5.5-inch Full HD, 1920 x 1080 pixels
• Processor: Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 616
• Memory: 16 GB internal memory (expandable), 2 GB RAM
• Camera: Rear : 13MP + OIS, Front : 5MP
• Operating system: Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with Emotion UI 3.1 on top
• Battery: 3,000 mAh
• Network: 3G, LTE
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.1,Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, microUSB 2.0
• Others: Fingerprint sensor, Dual-SIM (only one SIM card, on the second slot, can access 3G and LTE networks. SIM card 1 is restricted to just 2G)
• Colour options: Gold/Silver/Gray

Design

As of now I think we’re are all reading from the same script when I say that Huawei has so managed to ace smartphone design. We’ve witnessed the P series of Huawei’s premium smartphones morph from an outright Apple iPhone copycat to its own man. But that’s mainly justified. The P series comprises of pretty pricey (in their own right) devices so it is only fair to give buyers real value for their money. There, Huawei has perfected the art of blending all-metal designs with chamfered edges and good-to-look-at IPS Neo displays. The GR5, a smartphone that goes for half the price of the P8, last year’s flagship smartphone from Huawei, has pretty much the same build materials and quality. Save for the display which I will be coming back to in a moment.

With the GR5, users get the same top-level treatment like their peers who break the bank buying the Mate 8. There’s still the same carefully machined holes at the bottom of the device for sound output, a fingerprint sensor built-in right below the camera sensor at the back of the device and a near-perfect fit and finish.
The SIM tray and the microSD card slot are on the right of the device while the left features textured volume rocker and power buttons for better grip since you can easily miss them and owing to the slippery nature of the device, end up dropping it. Even then, the brushed aluminium body curves slightly inwards making holding it a pleasant experience.

Display

The Huawei GR5 packs a spacious and vibrant 5.5-inch full HD display. It may not be as bright and highly contrasting like the display panels I have interacted with on both the P8 and the Mate, high-end devices that cost twice as much or more, but it certainly has one of the best displays at its price range.

The display is large enough for web browsing and invites you to watch more video on the device than you ever thought you would.

Camera

The camera is one of the key highlights of the device after the impeccable design. Though plagued by very buggy software, the 13-megapixel shooter at the back of the GR5 and the 5-megapixel sensor on the front are no jokes. As you may already know, it is usually hard for me to find cameras on mid-range devices that exciting. The Huawei GR5 rightfully earned its badges on my recent trip to Hong Kong and Huawei’s home city, Shenzhen, China where it was the only smartphone I had in my possession for the most part. And boy, did it rise to the occasion!

You will still get some significant noise in the dark but it’s still much better than other cameras on mid-range devices I have used.

Here are sample shots to show you what it is capable of:

You can find the above images in their high resolution glory here.

The rest of the camera’s feature set is pretty much standard Huawei stuff. One can shoot some slow motion video, capture HDRs, shoot panoramas, apply Instagram-style filters, do some Timelapses, capture full HD video and what not. My main points of interest in the camera viewfinder’s many available options included ‘All-focus’ which allows users to change the focus on an image long after capturing it and object tracking.

Long story short, the Huawei GR5’s cameras won’t disappoint. Then again, when was the last time you read a review where I was disappointed by cameras on a Huawei device? Huawei has got quite some game in the camera department and it increasingly looks like that doesn’t change much even as you go down the food chain.

Software

The software on the Huawei GR5 is something familiar for those who have used Huawei smartphones before. Though it runs on the old Emotion UI 3.1 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop, there’s a lot of semblance to what you pretty much get on other Huawei devices running either older or newer versions of the device’s overlay. This is a good thing I guess. Experiences on mobile devices ought to be standard and consistent across devices by the same maker.

The Huawei GR5, despite feeling compact and all, is quite a big device. The 5.5-inch display is still there and Huawei knows it. That’s why the user interface has a one-handed mode that once turned on in the settings can be called into action by sliding one’s finger across the three standard Android on-screen controls.

Talking of the navigation bar, one can customize it to their tastes from the settings application. For instance, if you find the screen too big to start finding the notification bar then swiping down to access your notifications, you can simply choose a navigation bar option with a notification drop-down shortcut. Or, and this is very interesting and handy, you could simply employ the services of the fingerprint scanner at the back of the device. Tapping scrolling down on the fingerprint sensor results in the notification drop-down opening. Simple as that! There’s also the ‘Suspend button’ to ease handling for those who find the device a tad too big. Turning it on in the ‘Smart assistance’ section of the settings app results in having access to another way of navigating around the device.

Overall, for some strange reason, I find EMUI 3.1 visually appealing compared to the more recent EMUI 4.0. Still, like the latter, it requires a lot of work to smoothen things a bit. Read on to the performance segment to see why I am saying this.

Fingerprint scanner

The Huawei GR5, as already noted and can be seen in images above, has a fingerprint sensor at the back. This is something we don’t usually get to see on such devices but the GR5 and competing devices like Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 3 want to make it the new normal. And that’s a good thing. You don’t need to be at the top of the consumer foodchain to get the latest technology in your hands.

One impressive thing about the fingerprint sensor is that it is always on. You don’t need to do a thing to get it working; the sensor is always lurking in the darkness anticipating your next move so just lift up your finger and touch it and voila!

The implementation of the fingerprint scanner on the Huawei GR5 is rather interesting from a software standpoint. While it looks like the fingerprint scanner on the Huawei Mate 8 from the outside and works just as fast, the two are markedly different function-wise.

Yes, the fingerprint scanner on the Huawei GR5 will let you safely unlock the device when it is in its sleep state but guess what? That, and what I have already described in the software segment of this review above, is just about it. Unlike the fingerprint scanner on the Mate 8 that also works in applications like Telegram and LastPass, the one on the GR5 won’t do any of that. This is something I also experienced on the Tecno Phantom 5 last year.

There is a reason why. The Mate 8 is running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow which is the first Android build to support fingerprint scanners so integration with third party applications is possible. The Huawei GR5, as I have already noted, runs on Android Lollipop which does not natively support fingerprint sensors and as such applications built to work with that piece of hardware simply won’t play nice with it unless Huawei took several steps which are not worth with it for a sub $300 smartphone.

We are likely to get more off the fingerprint sensor on the Huawei GR5 if and when it gets Android Marshmallow.

Performance

Performance is the Achilles heel of the Huawei GR5. While everything else works in the device’s favour, it is spectacularly let down by its performance. There is lag and stuttering and all those other ugly things you neither want to hear about nor imagine. Yet it’s the case on this device.

From taking up to a minute to open the camera to taking a moment before responding to a side swipe on the home screen to stuttering when you summon the notification dropdown, the Huawei GR5’s performance woes are too visible to ignore.

Trying to open the camera when in the middle of using Google Maps’ navigation feature totally brings everything to a halt.

I am not in a position to know why this is the case but I suspect poorly optimized software is to blame for this. If that is why then an over the air (OTA) update of the software can fix everything without much fuss. Really, no one deserves to use the volume down+power button combo to take a screenshot then go to brew coffee and get back before the device is done saving the said screenshot. Ok, that’s a bit of a stretch but you get the drift.

Battery

The Huawei GR5 will give you a day’s worth of battery life and then some. Not a big deal. When used intensively, the display uses about 30% of the battery when on for about 5. Plus when you eventually run out of juice, most of the time just before you turn off your bedside light, you can count on the fast charging to work its magic in no time.

Others

I did not experience any issues when making or receiving calls on the device. Neither did I encounter any issues when using Safaricom’s LTE network.

The sound popping out of the speaker at the bottom of the device is loud enough when you are using the device in hands-free mode to receive calls without any earphones attached as well as when you are exploring Drake’s Views.

The good

• Protected apps (remember them?) that I protested about in the Mate 8 actually work as intended on the Huawei GR5. All whitelisted apps are let to stay on throughout while everything else gets knocked by Thor’s hammer.
• The display is sharp, crisp and vibrant.
• Good camera that takes some nice shots in low light even though it takes long to focus.
• Excellent design. Full marks are earned for the design of the Huawei GR5.

The bad

Performance issues water down what is actually a good device. The lag, the stuttering and the overall sluggish performance need to be addressed.

Final word

Huawei raises the mid-range bar with the GR5 and that is a very good thing. We need as many mid-rangers offering similar or near experiences to those that high-end devices offer. Most importantly, mid-range needs to stay mid-range. Put side by side with the pricey Galaxy A5 (2016) smartphone, anyone without the extra cash to go with Samsung’s steeply priced mid-rangers won’t hesitate to pick the Huawei GR5. And they will be getting something that is worth it at Kshs 28,000.

Read On Web → Huawei’s GR5 Smartphone Looks and Feels More Expensive Than It Actually Is

Tecno is trying its hand at tablets again with the new DroiPad 8 II. The device, which is now officially available in Kenya, is the third Android tablet in Tecno’s DroiPad tablet series. It is the fourth overall when we include the WinPad 10 which runs on Microsoft’s Windows platform.

In the box

As usual, you get a Tecno travel adaptor coupled with a USB cable for both charging and data transfer and something unique: a USB on the go (OTG) adaptor that also allows users to use the DroiPad 8 II to charge other devices. It has a 5,000mAh battery so sharing with any other devices you have when they run out of charge is nice to have as an option.

Impressions

We have been using the Tecno DroiPad 8 II for over two weeks now and what strikes us is its design. It is all metal with only a plastic strip at the top that houses the device’s radios. That and, of course, the glass front where you get to interact with the 8-inch HD IPS display.

We don’t know about you but usually, the first thing we do after initially setting up a device is to plug it in so that we can start on a clean slate (no pun). One of the things you will notice with the DroiPad 8 II is how fast it will take to be fully charged. That is because the bundled adapter supports fast charging.

One other noticeable thing is that the tablet is thick and heavy.

The DroiPad 8 II is a tablet that supports cellular network frequencies so you can slot SIM cards in the two available slots so that you can use mobile internet bundles from your service provider of choice. For those on the Safaricom network, Safaricom’s 4G/LTE network can be accessed as well since the DroiPad 8 II is a 4G device. Talking about mobile networks, besides browsing, you can use the tablet just like your phone i.e. make calls, text etc. We don’t know why you’d want to do that but you are not being limited. The choice is yours to make.

Starting today, the DroiPad 8 II is on sale countrywide at a price of Kshs 17,499. It will also be available online through Jumia Kenya at a discounted price. This is the first time that Tecno is making a tablet available in the open market. Previously, the devices have been sold exclusively through Safaricom. The first fifty people to buy the tablet in Nairobi get a free 8 GB flash drive.

There is still a lot about the DroiPad 8 II which you can expect to hear about in the tablet’s upcoming review.

Read On Web → Tecno DroiPad 8 II: First Impressions

We may not have had a chance to have a look and properly explore Tecno’s previous Android slates but we did spend quite some quality time with its latest tablet, the Tecno DroiPad 8 II.

First things first, globally, users are least interested in plain old slates. They are more inclined to buy “detachables” than the old-fashioned blown-up versions of smartphones in all their candy bar form factors that most tablets really are. While that is true of the overall global tablet market, things can always be different here at home since we are still young. As such, tablets like the Tecno DroiPad 8 II, do stand a chance, however slim.

Specifications

• Size: 211 x 123 x 8.3mm
• Display: 8-inch HD (800 x 1280 pixels) IPS LCD
• Memory: 1 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage (expandable via microSD slot)
• Camera: 5 MP main; 2 MP sensor on the front
• Processor: 64-bit quad-core MediaTek MT 8735P
• Operating System: Android 5.1.1 Lollipop
• Battery: 5,000 mAh (non-removable)
• Network: 3G, 4G LTE
• Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, microUSB 2.0
• Other: FM radio

One of the first things one will notice upon unboxing the Tecno DroiPad 8 II tablet, of course besides the ridiculously long name, is that it is quite heavy. Really heavy. In fact, since it has matching looks, it can easily qualify for consideration as the iPad 2’s mini version from 5 years ago that never was.

The other thing that you will notice is the all-metal design of the tablet. In fact, as already noted in our preview piece, other than the small plastic strip at the top that is necessary for the network radios, only the glass on the front breaks the monotony of the DroiPad 8 II’s metal enclosure. As a result, there are some drilled holes at the bottom to make it possible to let out sound from the two dual stereo speakers (finally a device that doesn’t try to trick you that it has two speakers while there’s just one behind the two grilles). With the current cold Nairobi weather, you will feel the cold metal when reading your newspaper (ePaper?) on the tablet early in the morning, something the tablet does so well.

We have to appreciate the effort made here. At the DroiPad 8 II’s price, you are lucky to get any external metallic component on competing devices. The options out there are all plastic. For those to whom this matters, we guess it’s kind of a big deal, right?

Generally, compact tablets that are not so small to collide with the increasing number of phablets but smaller than the iPad (9.7-inch), seem to hit the sweet spot. The Tecno DroiPad 8 II is one of the many that fall in that range. At 8-inches, it is not too big for you to handle it with one hand nor is it too small to compete with all the big smartphones out there. It’s just large enough to not fit in the front pockets of your pants.

The display of the tablet is one of the positives. It’s not as pixelated as pricier options in the market are but it is not grainy either. We have been able to enjoy content that ranges from the daily digital newspaper to a couple of eBooks to watching HD movies without any hiccups. And by hiccups, we mean anything that comes between us and the experience we get. In fact, at 8-inches, the DroiPad 8 II can easily become your small cheap moving theatre cum library.

The tablet, like any other device being released today, has two cameras. Cameras are a big deal on mobile devices today but we are still not convinced that they are such a big deal on tablets. Let’s say they are nice to have. The DroiPad 8 II’s cameras both on the front and the back are not any good but it’s not like any of that matters anyway. It’s a tablet, taking photos or recording videos with it, while cumbersome, should be the last thing you are buying a tablet for. But wait, it’s your tablet, right? So you can do with it as you please and we surely don’t want to be the ones standing in your way so may be that information helps.

Tecno is not bringing its flashy new user interface, HiOS, to the DroiPad 8 II. As a result, you get the old Tecno UI on top of Android 5.1 Lollipop which the device runs. For the most part, performance will be smooth and up to desired or expected levels. You will, however, experience the occasional stutter, like we did. That is very limited and only comes to fore when you push the device to its limit, something you are not likely to be doing often if at all you will.

Unlike other similar tablets we have used before, Tecno does not bundle anything in the form of content to act as incentives to buy the device. You know, things like magazine subscriptions and the like. However, with an already subsidized price, we think its fair game.

Battery life should be the last of a user’s worry. The tablet packs a beefy 5,000mAh battery unit that lasts much longer. With the USB OTG adaptor that is included in the box, users can even share some of that juice with other devices.

Just as we are not proponents of going around snapping pictures using tablets, we are also not convinced that you should use your tablet to receive or make phone calls. Not only is it cumbersome to be holding an 8-inch slate that is 8.3mm thick over your ear or desperately trying to fire a quick text in the matatu, it makes one look like a clown. Really. It will be a while before some things become acceptable. Still, the Tecno DroiPad 8 II will do that if you demand of it. Tecno has included 2G, 3G and 4G LTE radios so that the tablet behaves pretty much like your average smartphone. Word of advice: take advantage of the LTE capabilities of the device to slot in a 4G SIM and access content online instead of trying to cover your ear with the device in the name of making phone calls.

One of the positives of the Tecno DroiPad 8D, as it is also known as, is some subtle tweaks to the software that cannot be ignored. After retiring version 3 of Android (Honeycomb) which was meant for tablets, Google has made little steps to make the overall Android experience on tablets any better. Device makers have been left to their own devices (ha!) to figure out how to make it easy for users of their devices to find their way around.

On the Tecno DroiPad 8 II, users can easily take screenshots by tapping a quick shortcut on the navigation strip at the bottom that also houses the home, back and recent apps/task switcher on-screen controls. The controls are spaced out in such a way that regardless of how one is holding the tablet, both hands can access either set on the left or the right easily. This is a big contrast to the standard Android practice of having these buttons at the centre which makes it difficult to access them on tablets. Oh, and you don’t need to stretch to view your notifications or access quick settings, there’s a dedicated shortcut as well on the far left of the navigation bar. Handy!

Tecno has managed to pack a compact tablet with the basics while still being reasonable. Reasonable? Yes, because the tablet’s main selling point is Tecno’s discounted asking price, Kshs 16,500. There are a lot of mediocre Android-powered tablets out there, some as cheap as half the price of the Tecno DroiPad 8 II but none anywhere as impressive as Tecno’s latest effort. Those that are not mediocre, like Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab A 7, will have a hard time matching the pricing from their Kshs 21,000 ivory towers but still give Tecno the run for its money that is necessary to keep it on its toes.

Read On Web → Tecno DroiPad 8 II Review

This is what exactly comes to mind when you hear about “pizza rising”. Because where else can pizza rise to other than your mouth? PHOTO/PIZZA HUT

It’s Friday. The week is ending and the month is ending too. Guess what ended the last time we had a weekend? English football. With the crowning of Manchester United at Wembley stadium as the Emirates FA Cup champions, the curtains finally fell on the 2015/2016 English football season. Still in the United Kingdom, the IRB World Series season which saw the Kenyan rugby team win the main cup for the first time ever, ended at London’s Twickenham stadium.

As such, there will be many of us with more time this weekend for the first time ever in a long while. Well, there’s still the hot Champions League final on Saturday night, the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon and to crown it all, episode 6 of Game of Thrones on Sunday night/Monday morning but they are so spaced out. I have an idea what you can do with the new found extra time: try out a hot new game developed by a Kenyan, Tumtafune – Rise of The Pizza.

‘Tumtafune’ is the Swahili word for “let’s chew him/her up”, exactly what those pizzas have in mind when ganging up to attack their chef.

The game is relatively new. It’s only been around for a little over a week and the first time I played it, I was impressed. The same is the case for my colleagues who have been on it for much longer than they’ve been working [rolls eyes].

The key selling point of Tumtafune as you will find out after spending an hour trying to beat your low high score is its addictive nature.

Its storyline is simple. It’s set in a kitchen so you get the usual stuff that you can find in any modern pizzeria’s kitchen. The game is, after all, about pizza! As the chef, the pizza coming off the oven somehow turns against you. Before you even realize it, it’s biting you and your “life” is at risk. As the rogue pizza bites, you have options to defend yourself. At first, all you have is the rolling pin you used on the dough. So you use it (by tapping whichever side the prying pizza is on) to remind the readymade pizza who the boss is. Before long, though, you will need a better weapon or else you will be overwhelmed and the food you prepared will actually feast on you.

By dragging your finger across the screen, you can move to the right where a knife pops up as soon as you’ve dealt with a few pizzas. As you beat up more rogue pizzas, a sound alert will remind you that you can use something even better than an ordinary kitchen knife, a butcher’s knife. Depending on how long you have been playing the game, by this time you are almost running out of your in-game life and the end is nigh, something the declaration Umetafunwa (you’ve been chewed up) will confirm.

According to the game’s developer, Eugene Adeli of Game Central Station, an upcoming update will add even more weapons including the ability to just blow up the whole thing. The chef will have more weapons at his disposal including a frying pan (because what else is better to smash things in a kitchen than a pan?), a flame thrower and a gas cylinder. Just like in real life, throwing the gas cylinder will result in an explosion.

As a version 1.0, the game is really smooth and there are aren’t any noticeable bugs. I have played the game on three different devices with similar results. Other than more weapons, which will be introduced soon, players will appreciate a constant leaderboard they can view in the game or some sort of integration with Google Play Games for the same. I would like to know how I fair when compared to others who are also dirtying their kitchen floor with pizza crust, toppings and sauce. I hope this gets added in a future update.

Also, if there can be a way to pause the game. I’ve come close to beating my high score only to fail to do so since I had to attend to something else urgent and there was no way to momentarily pause the game. Or is there something I don’t know? One more thing, may be that chef can be made to show some emotion? Like look worried when his pizza comes to bite? He just can’t have an expressionless face all through.

Tumtafune – Rise of The Pizza is only available on the Google Play Store i.e. for Android devices only. The developer tells me that the game is coming to iOS and Windows Phone before the end of June.

Casual, addictive games have had a lot of success on all mobile platforms and Tumtafune – Rise of The Pizza, is a good play if you want to kill time on a weekend. I can’t talk about a work day because you will definitely end up missing some other schedules without even realizing you are doing so. That looks like what the current high scorer did. How do you even hit a score of 982,018? The best I’ve managed is somewhere north of 16,000. Madness!

Read On Web → This Kenyan Pizza Game is Probably The Best Way to Kill Time This Weekend

Kenyan developers are really stepping up when it comes to app development, and game developers have not been left behind either. There is a lot that can be said about good design when it comes to applications, more so for games because as a developer you want people to have a reason to keep playing your game. Nobody wants to play a crappy looking game, no matter how awesome the game play is. Game play and design must go hand in hand in creating a worthwhile gaming experience.

In his review, Emmanuel Chenze described the first game, Tumtafune as a very good time killer during the weekend and he is right. This game is down right addictive. Literally, once you start playing, you really do not want to stop doing so, adding to its appeal. It is simply done with simple graphics that work well with the environment and the story line of the game. Check out his article for of his review.

Now the second game I’d like to introduce is Jump Chaos Chase The Seven Mims. I know, that is a mouthful. Despite its rather long name, it is a simple game really whereby you have to help a creature (I would assume is referred to as a mim) go up a number of steps/levels/floating land/ platform-like things while escaping other black creatures that lead to you imminent death. As you go up, you create chaos by breaking glass (I do not know why)

I have to be honest, its a pretty hard game to play, well in my case at least, because despite numerous tries, I cannot seem to get past a best score of 2! This reminds me of another frustrating game that I could barely make it further than 5, Flappy Bird!Why do people do this to us!

It is integrated with Google Play Services, so signing in gives you access to a leader board you can use to judge your prowess.

My only quarrel with this game is the name really (and maybe the fact that I cannot do better than 2). Otherwise it is a very good companion once you find yourself in a position where you need to sink your head down to your phone.

You know what? Coming to think about it, I think this could be an awesome conversation starter at a party. Get some competition going.

Watch my video review of them to get feel of their game play

Check them out and share with me your high score and ill see if I truly suck or i’m quite good!

Read On Web → Two Kenyan Made Game Apps Video Review

‘Wily’ is a term that can only be used to describe one animal, the fox whose head is beautifully engraved at the back of Wileyfox smartphones. While foxes are cunning and sly hence the ‘wily’ adjective, there are no traces of such as per my month-long interaction with the Wileyfox Storm.

Maybe the Wileyfox brand is using that to send a message about its aggression going forward. Maybe it’s just a name. That I don’t know. What I do know is that the Wileyfox Storm, one of the two smartphones that Wileyfox is testing the Kenyan mobile waters with, like other Wileyfox devices, attempts to be different. To stand out from the crowd.

Being different or attempting to be different is not a bad thing. In fact, it is the only thing that I ask of all devices entering our market. Haven’t we seen enough of the copycats already? Devices that look like bastard children of other more prominent devices we already know of?

So how different is the Wileyfox Storm from anything you may have seen so far? From my experience, not much when it comes to its looks which are certainly very forgettable but a little different when it comes to the software which I will come to in a bit.

Specifications

• Size: 77.3 x 155.6 x 9.2mm
• Display: 5.5-inch full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) IPS LCD
• Memory: 3 GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage (expandable via microSD slot)
• Camera: 20.7 MP main with full HD video recording; 8 MP sensor on the front with HD video recording
• Processor: Octa-core Snapdragon 615 clocked at 1.5 GHz
• Operating System: Android 5.1.1 Lollipop
• Battery: 2,500 mAh (non-removable)
• Network: 3G, 4G LTE
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB 2.0
• Other: FM radio

In the box

The Wileyfox Storm’s packaging is simple. A thin orange and black box with just the device, some user manuals and warranty information and a neatly packaged USB cable. That’s it! No adaptor, no headsets.

Design

The Wileyfox Storm is a plastic device through and through. As such, like other mid-range smartphones we’ve looked at (cough Xiaomi Redmi Note 2), there’s not much going for it that can inspire some positive words from me. It is not something that is going to excite you when you stare at it from the front when it is lying on a table with the screen fast asleep. Looks are not its strongest point. The same goes for its sibling, the Wileyfox Swift, which I have had the pleasure of interacting with briefly.

However, things change a little bit when you actually hold the device. With a 5.5-inch display, the Wilefox Storm is not supposed to just feel at home when you first hold it. But it does! The rounded corners and soft-touch plastic back come together seamlessly to make it comfortable to hold the device and even use it with one hand even when the software has not been tweaked to accommodate one-handed mode as we have seen in devices like the Huawei GR5.

Without a logo on the front, the only pronounced features besides the big glass panel are the earpiece at the centre and the LED flash and camera sensor on the left and right respectively.

The capacitive buttons at the bottom of the front glass panel can be easily missed since they only come to life when there’s some interaction with the device. The home capacitive key also lights up periodically when there are notifications. This is to make up for the lack of an LED notification light whose place has been taken by the front-facing flash for selfies. We’ve seen this before. On devices like the Tecno Boom J7.

The back is not just important because it makes the handling easier thanks to its soft-touch feel but also because it has the imposing camera and dual-LED flash which are in a small vertical visor-like strip with orange accents. The logo at the middle is way too cool to overlook while the Wileyfox branding in orange at the bottom, just above the speaker grille, while easily noticeable, looks indifferent.

Display

The Wileyfox Storm, as already stated, packs a 5.5-inch full HD IPS LCD display. It’s sharp and crisp enough that reading text won’t be an issue and everything just looks alright. What else can you expect of a 400ppi display anyway? However, it doesn’t fair that well outdoors in full sunlight and cranking up the brightness slider doesn’t help matters though it will get you halfway there.

Camera

While Wileyfox definitely did try by putting a 20.7-megapixel sensor at the back of the device and another 8-megapixel one on the front, it still wasn’t enough to impress me that much. Of course, at this moment, you all know that there is much more to good photos than the megapixel count, right?

I have a straightforward approach to using smartphone cameras. Since I’m not a camera nerd or whatever photographers go by, my use of smartphone cameras is simple: I need not struggle to get good shots. Just pulling the device from my jeans, opening the camera app and firing away with just a little concentration and (maybe) no shaking of the hands should get me the desired result.

With the Wileyfox Storm, that resulted in a hit here and a miss there so I don’t know what to make of it, yet, but you can easily tell that it’s not up to scratch. Things don’t get better when HDR is on either and the auto-focus is just too slow. Selfies are a bit better but still not there.

You can check out the full-sized photos here.

Cyanogen OS

The software that the Wileyfox Storm packs is one of the high points of the device. This is because it is quite different from the standard Android experience you usually get on most devices.

We’ve become so used to all the badly done customization to Android that it’s easy to forget what Android should look and feel. The Wileyfox Storm and Cyanogen OS bring that back.

Since Kenya has never been one of those markets where everyone who is not a hardcore Android fan or enthusiast can easily lay their hands on a device with Google’s vision for Android aka Nexus smartphones, the Wileyfox Storm and its sibling the Swift may as well be the closest that most will ever get to Android purity.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many device makers who are shipping devices with minimal alterations to stock Android and retaining the looks as well but still, Cyanogen is Cyanogen and outside Google’s own implementation, this is as clean as clean gets.

We’ve become so used to all the badly done customizations to Android that it’s easy to forget what Android should look and feel. The Wileyfox Storm and Cyanogen OS bring that back. Granted, this is not the purest of Android builds since Cyanogen Inc also has its own idea of how the Android experience should be like, the vision of less clutter and no bloatware is not lost. If anything, it is re-affirmed.

The Wileyfox Storm arrived late last year running Cyanogen OS 12.1 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. This is still what you get when you buy the device today since it is yet to get Cyanogen OS 13 which brings Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

There’s bound to be some confusion when it comes to understanding the difference between Cyanogen OS and CyanogenMod which most people have likely heard of or even gone ahead to flash on their devices.

I have slightly tried to explain the differences here but for the sake of this review here’s the one difference that really matters: Cyanogen OS is the commercial version of the software that is built for specific devices.

Unlike CyanogenMod, Cyanogen OS is more efficient and less buggy since all the hardware resources of the devices it is to run on are made available to its developers so that everything runs smoothly. CyanogenMod, on the other hand, only works smoothly based on the much the software is able to take advantage of on the hardware since mostly, it is a community solution that lacks the blessings of the device maker and as such, any access to proprietary resources.

There is a feature called LiveDisplay which when turned on acts much like Night Shift on the current versions of iOS: it changes the display’s temperature depending on the time of day. This had me going slow on my usage of Twilight, the F.lux equivalent accessible to those of us who don’t fancy rooting their devices.

The Cyanogen dialer’s integration with third-party spam detection and caller identification service Truecaller may be welcome and frowned upon in some quarters. It is all up to the user to decide whether to turn it on or not.

Since the Storm has hardware buttons for navigation purposes, it is quite possible to turn them off from the settings app and use the standard Android on-screen navigation bar instead, something I last experienced on the first generation OnePlus smartphone.

Cyanogen OS, even with all the fluidity and stability, is not without its quirks. I got a few app freezes and crashes even though, generally, it’s all good.

Performance

Thanks to running Cyanogen OS, the Wileyfox Storm is one of the best mid-range smartphones I have used this year when it comes to performance. The device flies!

Cyanogen OS, and CyanogenMod as well, takes a minimalist approach to how Android is implemented. Just like Google envisioned. As a result, there’s not a lot of resources wasted on unnecessary bundled applications and heavy (and ugly) interfaces. Everything is just standard so that you can tune the device to your own liking.

The extra memory available as a result and the Snapdragon 615 processor the device packs, team up to deliver an experience that is a far cry from what I managed to get from the similarly-priced Huawei GR5.

Battery

If you need a battery warrior, the Wileyfox Storm is not the device to go for. The battery is disappointing. Do you know why that neat white USB cable it comes with is easy to coil and put in your pocket? Because you will need to have it with you everywhere you go. No kidding.

With just mild use, the 2,500mAh battery, will have given up by 2PM and you will need to juice up the device if it is to get you through the day. That kind of capacity is likely “just ok” for the Wileyfox Swift but it is definitely not okay for the Wileyfox Storm.

With the kind of blazing performance that the Wileyfox Storm offers, you will be disappointed that you can’t have more of it without worrying that the battery will die on you not long after.

Others

The Wileyfox Storm’s speaker grille, which is oddly placed at the back of the device while, surprisingly, the Wileyfox Swift has it at the bottom of the device, is not one of the loudest but it gets the job done.

Network reception is fine and making and receiving calls is not an issue. As is browsing on 3G and LTE using the device.

Some gestures are supported. Double tapping the status bar results in the display turning off when enabled in the settings app.

The Good

• Cyanogen OS. It’s clean, light, stable and simple. The power users can dig in the settings to get more out of the device but for everyone else, the software is ready to go. Just install your favourite apps from the Play Store and go. No need to spend hours trying to use apps to undo the mess created by the device’s makers on the software as you are likely to do on every other device that is either not a Sony or a Nexus-branded smartphone.
• The device is fast. When I say fast, I know what I’m talking about because I am just from this traumatizing experience.

The Bad

• The battery!
• The camera leaves a lot to be desired.

Final Word

You will fall in love with the Wileyfox Storm not for anything else but its software. It is well executed and with the Wileyfox Swift recently receiving Android Marshmallow, the same is on its way to the Storm, something we can’t say of the other mid-range smartphones we’ve met so far this year. With a little grasp of the ropes, one can even get a taste of Android N courtesy of the many hardworking developers from the XDA and CyanogenMod communities.

However, for a device whose main difference from the rest of the pack comes from the software and there’s not much else to sell when it comes to the hardware that the competition doesn’t already offer, I am left asking for more to justify the Kshs 29,000 price tag.

Read On Web → Wileyfox Storm: Making the Hard Case for Cyanogen OS

During this year’s Jumia Mobile Week’s unveiling, there was one new device that stood out from the rest that various brands paraded on stage. That was the Tecno PhonePad 7 II which Tecno’s tablet head John Marshal briefly teased.

First impressions

It was unique in that, with a 7-inch display, it strayed into tablet territory while its makers were just happy to let us think of it as a big smartphone. Don’t ask us where we get to blur the line between big smartphones aka phablets and the tablets themselves because now we don’t know.

The PhonePad 7 II, is, to be honest, a big smartphone as well as a small tablet. See the confusion now? This is what strikes you at first when you meet Tecno’s second tablet in the Kenyan market after the 8-inch DroiPad 8 II.

The other thing you notice is the black bars on the side which come in handy when you hold it in landscape mode (may be to view video content, read, browse etc) since it is such a big device. The big bezels work in its favour when handling device but, like the black bars, work against it when it comes to the looks. The looks are boosted a bit by the all-metal body.

Even with such a footprint which is too big for a smartphone, it is still possible to hold the Tecno PhonePad 7 II in one hand and actually use it. If you are to use it as a phone – for making calls, this is how you achieve that which is way easier and less a hassle than it is on the DroiPad 8 II.

Since it has to pack all the components in a much smaller chassis, the PhonePad 7 II is marginally thicker than the bigger DroiPad 8 II at 8.9 millimetres while the latter is thinner at 8.3mm.

The other surprise comes in the user interface. It’s still the good old Tecno UI. There’s no sight of Tecno’s new user interface, HiOS. We didn’t get to see that in the PhonePad 7 II’s elder sibling, the DroiPad 8 II, either so it’s not a surprise as such.

In the box

One gets a free flip cover worth Kshs 1,000 in the box alongside the usual stuff: a user manual and warranty card, a USB cable and an adaptor. Unlike in the DroiPad 8 II, you don’t get a USB OTG cable here even though the device actually supports OTG.

Specifications

• Size: 193.7 x 105 x 8.9mm
• Display: 7-inch 600 x 1024 pixels IPS LCD panel
• Memory: 1 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage (expandable via microSD slot)
• Camera: 5 MP main with LED flash; 2 MP sensor on the front with flash as well
• Processor: Quad-core MediaTek MT 8735M
• Operating System: Android 5.1.1 Lollipop
• Battery: 4,100 mAh (non-removable)
• Network: 3G, 4G LTE
• Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, microUSB 2.0
• Other: FM radio, dual-SIM

The PhonePad 7 II continues the trend of Tecno targeting budget tablet buyers with its low pricing. The Tecno PhonePad 7 II is on sale in the Kenyan market both in stores countrywide and online through Jumia for Kshs 14,500.

Since we’ve had this device for some time now, look out for our full review soon.

Read On Web → Tecno PhonePad 7 II: Unboxing and First Impressions

If you have used most of the loan apps currently available to Kenyans using Android smartphones like Tala (formerly Mkopo Rahisi), Branch and others then one thing stands out: they have easy interfaces that provide a lot of useful information to their users about the loans themselves, the interest, the instalments and the due date. M-Shwari, Safaricom’s own loan service has been lagging behind when it comes to this. While it uses the reliable SMS reminders to let users know when their due date is near or when they are defaulting on their loans, it’s just not enough.

All Safaricom users can access a lot of information about their subscription using the mySafaricom app, they can look PayBill numbers and check the M-PESA charges using the Safaricom M-Ledger app, they can confirm the recipient’s name using the Hakikisha feature or make sure they get the recipient’s number right using third-party apps like Tuma Pesa. What about M-Shwari? Honestly, other than going back to your old texts, not so much.

Until you meet My-Shwari.

I bumped into My-Shwari when doing my many daily rounds on the Google Play Store trying out new things like I always do and we hit it off immediately. I am a frequent user of M-Shwari’s loan facilities and the app, from the onset, addresses my needs as a user.

Like the M-Ledger application in its previous form, My-Shwari is not tied to your M-PESA account or Safaricom line in any way. It simply works with the information you provide to it. In this case, it scans your SMS inbox for any M-Shwari messages and tries to make sense of the data. The end result is some presentable simple tables offering a quick look into your debt status. This is in the form of monthly and annual summaries of your M-Shwari transactions including a history of those transactions.

Its most useful feature may be the constant count down to the due date. It is so easy to get carried away thinking that the 30-day grace period Safaricom gives M-Shwari users is a lot of time. My-Shwari not only shows you when you borrowed whatever amount but also the outstanding amount itself and the number of days remaining to the due date.

It also shows users the facility fee that Safaricom charges (which is simply the 7.5% monthly interest). Users can even turn to the loan calculator to see how much they would need to pay back when they borrow certain amounts.

Other than catering to loanees, the app is also great for everyone who uses M-Shwari for its other function: savings. It is a great way to check on one’s savings and keep track.

Many may not notice but you can never check your M-Shwari loan limit or balance when your M-PESA account balance is nil. This is because Safaricom charges Kshs 1 for every M-PESA enquiry you make and the same applies to M-Shwari. Having an application that can remember this exact information thanks to the SMSs that Safaricom sends comes in handy more so when you are no longer in possession of such messages. Since it reads your M-Shwari messages, it will also show your M-PESA account balance.

My-Shwari’s biggest selling point is its functionality but that does not come at a sacrifice to its looks. The interface, while basic, won’t be the one thing that you keep thinking about since it’s just fine and you won’t get lost navigating from one point to the other. All options can be accessed from the slide out menu.

I wouldn’t want a third party to keep details of all my M-Shwari transactions so I am actually happy that My-Shwari does not attempt to do just that. I’m just fine checking the statements that Safaricom sends to my email inbox monthly or the detailed summaries M-Ledger comes up with.

Go on, give My-Shwari a try. Don’t worry that your significant other will now have it easy catching up with the many debts you’ve been accumulating behind their back as the app does let you set a password to keep unwanted hands and eyes off your confidential data.

Read On Web → My-Shwari App Helps You Keep Up With Your M-Shwari Loans In A Way You Never Thought You Needed

Tecno is of the opinion that there is need for affordable tablets in the Kenyan market. To that end, the company has released two tablets in quick succession to target such users. The first tablet was the DroiPad 8 II. The second tablet is the PhonePad 7 II which is the subject of this review.

Specifications of the device can be found here.

Like the DroiPad 8 II, the Tecno PhonePad 7 II is an all-metal device with only glass on the front and a plastic strip at the top – for network radios – breaking the monotony. It has wide bezels that make holding it while using it easier but which in the end take some marks off the device’s design.

Like the larger DroiPad 8 II, the PhonePad 7 II has some dual stereo speakers at the bottom and the minihub housing the microSD card slot and the dual-SIM slots on the lower left. The volume rocker and the power button are on the upper left side. The positioning of the power button at the very top makes it easier for the index finger to access it when the device is held in portrait mode.

The device’s size makes it easier to handle. You can hold it in one hand and use it with the other. When you need to go, it can easily slip in your jeans pockets, even when you have the flip cover on (but why would you have it on anyway?).

The 7-inch LCD display which is the centre of the device by way of interaction and content consumption also happens to be one of its drawbacks. The display’s density is low thanks to the low-resolution panel in use and we noticed that it picks up scratches easily. This is more pronounced when reading text but less of an issue when consuming content like video.

Overall, the device’s performance is average. When used as expected, it delivers. It does stutter when stretched, something you will most probably understand since this is an entry-level tablet.

The Tecno PhonePad 7 II has a similar camera arrangement as the DroiPad 8 II, a 5-megapixel camera at the back and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. Even though both have LED flash for better lighting and all, they are not what you’d want to use to capture great moments. The back camera will come in handy in other use cases like say scanning documents while the selfie camera can be your go-to shooter for video calls at the very best.

Save for a few audio enhancements in the settings app, there is not much done to differentiate the PhonePad 7 II’s user interface from what you will find on other devices like the DroiPad 8 II. It is still not HiOS – probably because the device only has 1 GB RAM and the new interface can be quite demanding.

The ability to make calls and the additional LTE network capability made possible by the MediaTek MT8735M chip which the PhonePad 7 II packs are nice bonuses. While its still cumbersome to use a 7-inch device to place calls, it is quite handy to be able to connect to mobile networks on the go for social media, normal browsing and other uses.

The Tecno PhonePad 7 II keeps charge for several days. At the very least, over a day is guaranteed thanks to the beefy 4,100mAh battery unit that it packs. With very little going on – sensors and background activity – it is possible to squeeze even more from the PhonePad 7 II than we have been able to during our review period.

The Tecno PhonePad 7 II scores highly when it comes to the choice of material used (metal), the amount of onboard storage (16 GB), LTE network capability and long battery life. It does, however, score poorly when it comes to the display which is pixelated. The black bars on either side of the display and the big bezels don’t help matters either when it comes to assessing the device’s overall design even though the Champagne Gold colour of the review unit we had does look good on it. Then again you remember that this is a Kshs 14,500 device that is not meant to tick all the right boxes but to introduce users to tablets and probably whet their appetite on their way to getting something better someday, which we hope Tecno is already working on.

Read On Web → Tecno PhonePad 7 II Review

Microsoft announced its current flagship phones: the Lumia 950 and the 950XL in October last year and they have flagship level specs: powerful processors, lots of RAM, great cameras, high-resolution screens and next generation niceties like USB Type-C connectors.

Microsoft’s mobile ecosystem has undergone quite the metamorphosis. It started back in the day as Windows Mobile (like Windows Mobile 6.5 that ran on the Omnia II) until the major revamp that was Windows Phone 7. The platform has struggled to gain market share from the current giants (Android and iOS) but their latest release (Windows 10 Mobile) is quite promising. Microsoft’s aim this time round was to unify Windows 10 for PCs and Windows 10 Mobile to make it easy for interoperability of apps between them. Windows 10 is for tablets and PCs but Windows 10 Mobile was given a feature that makes it mimic the Windows 10 PC experience and that is Continuum.

So what is Continuum?

Continuum is what Microsoft envisions as a way of turning your phone to work like a PC by using certain accessories. The accessories include:

• Microsoft Display Dock HD-500
• 1 USB Type C to USB Type C cable
• Power brick

The setup

The key to the whole setup is that Microsoft Display Dock that the company sells for $99. It is the middleman that connects the phone, monitor and other peripherals to for a ‘desktop’ setup. When you first hold the hub, you will immediately notice that it has quite some heft to it (actually 230 grams) and has lots of ports.

Speaking of ports, there are 3 USB 2.0 ports (no USB 3.0 here) with one of them that has the ability to deliver a higher current, 1 display port, 1 HDMI port and 2 USBType-C connector ports. At the front, there is a lone USB Type-C connector which we will get to later.

Setting it up is easy: Connect the phone (in my case the Lumia 950) to the dock using the lone USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable at the front. Remember the other USB Type C connector at the back? Yup! That is the one that will be used to charge the dock so plug it to the wall using the supplied power brick. Finally, you can now plug in your monitor using either the HDMI or DVI port, where in my case I used a TV with a HDMI port.

We have to go back to the phone because that is half of where the magic happens. The dock facilitates the connection between the phone and its accessories but the processing, operating system and some degree of user control are done on the phone. There is the Continuum app that comes pre-installed that has a wizard that will guide you in the whole process of connecting your phone, dock and monitor.

When you connect successfully, you will be greeted by a “welcome screen” that has the word “Continuum” at the center and 4 arrows pointing at the corners. This will allow you to correctly scale your monitor where you only need to tap “get help” if your screen does not scale properly and tap “I see it” if it is properly scaled. The next step in the wizard is a tutorial video that shows you how to use Continuum but fortunately, you can skip the video by tapping a link on the page. When you pass this stage, that is when you are greeted by the Continuum desktop, which is akin to what we have seen on PCs that run Windows 10. I should point out that I used the wired dock route and was unable to try out the wireless adapter option that would allow you to pair your phone to the monitor. Microsoft has been gracious enough to explain how to set it up here.

You may wonder: how do I navigate around in Continuum mode? Well Microsoft thought of that and that is why you can either plug in a USB mouse and a keyboard on the dock or in my case use a nifty feature that made me not see the point of using them in the first place. When you are in Continuum mode, the phone’s touchscreen is used as a touchpad and it is AWESOME. The “touchpad” supports two finger scrolling and it is very smooth in action when you move the cursor around the desktop or scrolling around menus.

Since Continuum mode is used to mimic a PC experience, I had to replicate activities people do on their PCs and that is: browse the web and use Office apps. In order for me to use the web, I decided to use the inbuilt Edge browser and the experience was fantastic and it is thanks to the touchscreen-turned touchpad. Scrolling was smooth and the phone’s touchscreen was able to track my finger as I moved the cursor around. Since I didn’t have a keyboard to physically input a website’s URL, I was not at all limited in a way. When you hover the search bar in the browser and tap on it, the ‘touchpad’ displays the virtual keyboard on the phone which allows you to input the URL with ease.

Browsing was great but what about Office apps? Well, I fired up Word first and noticed something immediately: The virtual keyboard and touchpad combo was not working well in this productivity app. I ended up in a situation where I couldn’t remove the cursor from the header portion of the Word document and had to result in using a mouse to correctly position it. In addition, using the virtual keyboard in Word is cumbersome. This also applied in the other Office apps (Excel and PowerPoint) and I would suggest for you to get a Bluetooth keyboard/wired keyboard and a mouse to use them effectively in this mode. Nevertheless, Continuum is great for displaying Word documents, Excel workbooks and PowerPoint presentations but if you want to create content, you may have to get a keyboard and a mouse to use them effectively.

More information about the touchpad functionality in Continuum mode: there is an options button on your top right that allows you to change your display settings, personalize it, show the Continuum banner, set up a keyboard and mouse, give feedback and get more information about Continuum. This does not take the entire space as Microsoft has been gracious enough to leave a portion of the screen as a touchpad when you drop down the settings.

The peculiarities

Continuum is great but it suffers the classic case of a first generation product and that is app support. Fortunately, major Microsoft apps like Edge, Office apps, Photos, News, Stock and third party ones like USA Today are supported. However, weirdly a Microsoft app was not supported (Skype) and a popular social network (Facebook) which displayed an error message saying they will be supported soon.

Another peculiarity is the amount of processes the phone can handle in Continuum mode. In an instance, I had opened Word, News app, PowerPoint, Photos, Camera and Edge (with a few tabs opened) which proved too much for the phone and decided to randomly shut down and rebooted. That is rather peculiar since the phone has plenty of RAM (3GB) and enough horsepower thanks to the Snapdragon 808 humming in the chassis so it is a case of optimization.

Microsoft also decided to treat Continuum mode as a separate entity of the Windows Mobile experience. You can actually use the phone separately while in Continuum mode so you could be texting on your phone while watching a video on YouTube on the Edge browser. However, when you dig down in the settings, there is a toggle that will log you out of Continuum and will instead mirror what you are doing on the phone onto the monitor.

Verdict

I love Continuum, I really do. It is one of the cool things about Windows 10 Mobile and since it is only available to the Lumia 950 and the 950XL, it is a huge selling point. However, it will need the additional purchase of the $99 dock which would have been a steal if it was included in the package.

The next question would be who the product is for and it is simple really: it is for everyone but it could prove useful to specific groups of people like students and business people. But, there is the nagging problem of not all apps being supported in Continuum mode and that could prove to be a challenge for a person who has invested in the ecosystem. The phone, dock, mouse and keyboard could easily be north of $700 which could make someone decide to get a decent laptop instead. If you have the Lumia 950 or the 950XL, I’d definitely recommend getting the dock if you believe in the premise that your Lumia 950 or 950XL should be the computing power you need and you can turn it to a “PC” anytime you want. This is a first gen product that shows promise and I would bet that the next version of Continuum would be one to look out for.

Read On Web → Windows Continuum Review: Definitely the Coolest Windows 10 Mobile Feature

We never got a chance to dive deeper into the last generation of Tecno’s camera-centred Camon series of smartphones which launched last year. Save for a few minor interactions with the two devices, the Camon C5 and the Camon C8, it has taken us over a year to start getting over our curiosity. We hope this year’s flag bearer of that noble Tecno family, the Camon C9, will answer all our questions and fulfill our curiosity.

First impressions

To live up to its name and build on where its predecessors left, the most noticeable feature of the Tecno Camon C9 is not the big 5.5-inch display or the removable sandstone-looking but rubbery-feeling plastic back cover or the metal frame around the device.

It’s the imposing pair of camera sensors on both the front and the back. This is not hidden by the packaging (see above lead image) which is themed around a camera shutter.

If you’re a device nerd like we’re here at Techweez then the “big eye” look of the front-facing sensor will remind you of a device we first saw about 2 years ago: HTC’s aptly-named Desire Eye. Like the Eye, the Camon C9 has identical sensors on both the front and the back. Infinix is also on the verge of releasing a device with a similar look soon.

A quick sweep of the device will reveal something that is a necessity in camera-centred smartphones but a rarity in any of the devices that Tecno has been releasing in its history of nearly a decade: a dedicated camera key. Well, to be fair, the previous generation of Camon smartphones had it. It lies on the lower left side of the device and you can easily miss it since it successfully manages to camouflage itself in the thin metal frame of a similar colour.

At 10.35mm, the Tecno Camon C9 is noticeably thick, thick enough for the device to not have a camera bump as is always the case with most Slimpossible-modeled devices.

The software remains pretty much unchanged from what we encountered on the Tecno Boom J8. HiOS is still in version 1 with minor improvements to smoothen things a bit and remove some of the confusing references we found in the Boom J8 like the hilarious ‘Move your income over the sensor to answer the call’.

Can you spot the difference?

In the box

Inside the box, buyers of the Camon C9, which goes on sale in Kenya today, will get the usual stuff: a USB cable and an accompanying wall adaptor, a pair of basic earphones, some documentation (user manuals and warranty card) and a smart flip cover. One more thing: there is also a SIM ejector PIN included in the packaging. Not because the Camon C9 has a SIM tray but for pushing your microSIM out if need be.

Specifications

• Size: 153 x 76.4 x 10.35mm
• Display: 5.5-inch full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) IPS LCD panel
• Memory: 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage (expandable via microSD up to 128GB)
• Camera: 13MP main with LED flash; 13MP sensor on the front with flash as well
• Processor: Octa-core MediaTek MT 6753 backed by a Mali-T720 GPU
• Operating System: Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Tecno’s HiOS UI on top
• Battery: 3,000 mAh (non-removable)
• Network: 3G, 4G LTE
• Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, microUSB 2.0
• Other: FM radio, dual-SIM

Pricing

The Camon C9 goes for Kshs 18,000, a bit higher than its predecessor’s pricing but the same price bracket of another HiOS-powered Tecno smartphone, the Boom J8 and yet another budget device, the Infinix Zero 3. Does the Camon C9 come anywhere close to the two? Stick around for our in-depth review of the Tecno Camon C9 soon.

Read On Web → Tecno Camon C9: First Look

Infinix has yet again released a 4G version of their phones to the market, and this time it’s a 4G LTE version of their very budget Infinix Hot 3 released earlier this year. If you read my review of the Infinix Hot 3, you will remember that I actually thought this device was quite impressive especially for its low price. The display was crisp, I loved the design and its performance was satisfactory but most importantly, the price was very pocket friendly. Now the 4G version is this and better in a number of aspects.

There are three major areas that have seen upgrades in this iteration of the Infinix Hot 3. These include the camera, processor and of course the 4G connectivity. All the other things are pretty similar, except for the more pronounced textured back cover. For the purposes of this article and the video, I will refer to the previous version as the 3G Infinix Hot 3 and this new one as the 4G version. Sure they have their own model numbers (Infinix X553 for the new 4G version and Infinix X554 for the earlier version) but it seems like a mouthful honestly, so bear with me.

The Camera

So both the front and back facing cameras have seen an improvement in Mega pixel count, although I am not too sure if the sensors have changed. The 3G version had an 8MP back and a 2MP front facing camera. These cameras were not outstanding really. You had to find the utmost right conditions in terms of lighting for it to produce good photos, but they mostly suffered from over exposure and over processing. The front facing camera was sub par as well.

The 4G version comes with a 13MP and 8MP camera combination. These cameras almost corrected the things I didn’t like about the 3G version. They are not perfect but, compared to the 3G version, they are miles better. Over exposure was reduced and color reproduction was quite good as well. Check out the video for some sample shots

The processor

We are used to Infinix devices using Mediatek chips but they decided to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip in the Infinix Hot 3 4G version. It comes with an entry level Snapdragon 415 chip octa core processor clocked at 1.4GHz. This spells better performance compared to the quad core Mediatek set up that is present in the 3G version.

In addition to this, the 4G version also comes with more memory,specifically 2GB of RAM compared to the 1GB of RAM present in the 3G version. I found the performance to be smoother, quicker and it better handled multitasking compared to the 3G version.

4G LTE connectivity

4G connectivity simply allows you to have faster internet speeds when browsing or downloading and uploading files and images to the Internet. These speeds can be up to 10 times faster compared to those experienced on 3G connectivity. That’s the pretty scenario that we look forward to when we see 4G, but sometimes this is not the case.

Globally 4G use and implementation has been on the rise with other countries preparing for 5G deployment, yet not all parts of our country have good 3G connectivity let alone 4G, but coverage areas are increasing day by day. If you are lucky and are in an area with good 4G coverage, then you must take advantage of these speeds and with this device you do not have to spend too much money doing so. It’s still a budget device giving you access to some awesome specs without a lot of compromise. I tried browsing on 4G with it and achieved some pretty fast speeds, so this is a plus for me.

With 4G being made more accessible, it makes sense to have a device that will take advantage of it.

There are a couple of things that I think still need fixing in the Infinix Hot 3 like the battery. The 4G version comes with the same size battery but I feel like it drains a bit faster than the 3G version probably due to the hardware upgrades. A bigger battery would have been welcomed.

Conclusion

Overall, I really have no complaints about this device. It is a better version of an already solid budget device. At a retail price of Kshs 11,699, it is still a really good deal. Like I said in the video, if you already have the 3G Infinix Hot 3, I don’t think you need to buy this device as an upgrade. You can just wait for the next phone in the Hot series. However, if you are still considering buying the Infinix Hot 3, I would strongly recommend getting the 4G version. It’s quicker and considerably better than the 3G version for just a few thousand shillings extra. If you can spare that, it’s a pretty solid device.

Read On Web → Review of the 4G LTE Version of the Infinix Hot 3

I got the request to review this application some time back and two thoughts immediately crossed my mind. One, why does it sound more like a URL to follow, rather than the name of an app to download. Two, what’s so exciting about a calculator that I should turn my attention to? I equate a calculator to a glass of water, it’s not all that exciting really, but ultimately necessary. No matter how much you add flavor or color to water, it is still water. A calculator is still a calculator. What makes this particular one tick is the question I had in my mind.

Well, let’s just say once I opened the application, it caught my attention in a very specific way. How you ask? According to me, referring to this app as just calculator is a huge understatement. For instance, I can’t even add, multiply or subtract numbers using this app, which of course is the basic feature of any calculator (you have your phone calculator to do that) but instead, there are a number of algorithms and functions built in that give you computational results for various financial questions that you face in your day to day life.

Features

I do not want to go through all the things that this app can calculate but I will mention them and the categories they fall into. However, there are a number of features that I do want to get into because I think they are either more helpful or fun to play around with.

Before I get into that, these are the things you can currently calculate on this app;

Tax:

• Income Tax
• Import Duty
• VAT
• NHIF
• NSSF

Bills:

• Nairobi water
• KPLC Prepaid
• KPLC Postpaid

Loans:

• EMI Loan
• HELB Loan
• Loan Affordability

Mobile Money:

• KCB MPESA
• M-SHWARI
• MPESA Cost

Money Market:

• Currency Converter

Travel:

• Journey Price

Insurance:

• Motor Insurance

Health:

• Pregnancy
• BMI

Clearly there is a lot that this app can do, most of them pretty obvious and present in other dedicated applications. There are a number however that caught my attention more, because I honestly feel like I would use them frequently or simply provided answers to questions I didn’t know I had.

Without further ado let me get into it

1. KPLC Prepaid vs KPLC Post-paid Electricity bills

In case you live somewhere where having a prepaid KPLC meter is not widely adapted, this is simply a system where you top up a meter with tokens to get electricity just as you would to top up airtime. When we had this installed in our house, we tried figuring out if it was cheaper or more expensive than the normal post-paid meter.

The other question we had is how many tokens we actually buy with a certain amount of cash and why does the number vary most times. However, these questions would move to the back of my mind as the month went by and only resurface the next month.

That’s where this app comes to play now. Under bills, you can find KPLC prepaid services. You can work backwards. Let’s say you want just a specific number of tokens to last you for a number of days because maybe you are moving out and have no good will to let the next tenant leech on your electricity, you can work out exactly how much money you need to spend. You can also see the deductions or levies that you incur when you buy tokens. I think this is a really cool feature and it makes the otherwise foggy process of figuring out electricity tokens a bit more transparent.

2. Journey Price

I am an avid traveler. I love being on the road a lot but this can become quite expensive as well. Budgeting for fuel is something I hate doing because sometimes I can’t simply estimate, I might overestimate or underestimate leading to losses or getting stuck in the middle of nowhere (yikes!). To be safe, I simply fill up the tank and go, any leftover fuel is still a good thing. But what if you are completely mean and you have hired a car or borrowed one and you are in no mood of leaving them a couple of extra days worth of fuel. Well, you need to do the math, which can honestly be daunting. This app has the solution.

There is a journey price calculator that tells you the distance of travel, the travel time, estimated fuel in liters and the total cost of fuel. All you need to do is input your start and destination points, the fueling station (town/county), fuel type and vehicle MPG rating. Easy.

Fuel Attendant: Good morning..

You: Hi, could you just put in (Kshs) 285.6. Thanks!

Fuel Attendant: Err…okay?

3. Pregnancy due date calculator and BMI calculator

Ladies (and concerned gentlemen), you can know all amount of creepy and yet necessary things using this feature of the app. If you want, you can get the baby’s due date, when you will get the positive pregnancy test, the baby’s zodiac sign, baby’s first kick, first heart beat and I kid you not, the conception date. Apparently this is something many would-be mothers calculate anyway which seems odd to me but if you really want to have your baby be born on the same day Jessie Williams shook the world with his BET awards acceptance speech to justify naming your kid (boy or girl, no judgement) after him, then why not plan it!

It’s just fun playing with this thing.

Health freaks, this one is for you! If you want that extra reassurance that you are not overweight for your size group or the nudge to actually do something about your weight, then why not continually use this feature to see where you fall!

Feature-wise, this application is like a hub of many different functions and solutions that can each be found in dedicated apps. There apps that exist for calculating MPESA costs, convert currency and many others, but I feel like the appeal of this app is the fact that you can have all these and more, bundled up in one place and budget a lot of things in your daily lives. I feel like this app is the equivalent to a Swiss Army knife. Almost everything you can think of is available.

Now it’s not all rosy for me, there are a few things I do not like about this app. First of all and to no surprise, I clearly do not like that name. It does nothing for me, in fact it confuses me and this might mean me looking away from it. Maybe it’s just me but structuring an app name with ‘.co.ke’ at the end just feels like not much though was put into it. I don’t know. It’s not like I have any other name suggestions but doesn’t this seem more than just a calculator?

The other thing that I am not a fan of is the design. It is plain and not necessarily fun to look at. Do not get me wrong, it is not ugly but I honestly believe a redesign of how the features are presented, maybe the use of tabs to better organize the features and a few pops of color here and there never hurt anybody.

Have you used this app yet? Tell me what you think about it if you have.

Read On Web → App Review: Calculator.co.ke The Swiss Army Knife of Budgeting Applications

I am a big photography lover. I love taking photos and videos of people, places and objects all around. I simply cannot help myself and that is why I continually invest in getting some good cameras to use to bring out the stories I see. But by far, my most important camera is my smartphone camera, because that is the one that moves with me, wherever I go, it is always there. It is definitely the first one reach for. Then it makes sense for me to really make sure that I always get the best camera on a smartphone with every purchase I make.

I am not the only one.

Since I am not the only one who treasures the camera on a phone, companies are always on the track of making some good smartphones with some magnificent cameras on board and Tecno was not to be left behind. They embarked on creating a series of phones focused for photography lovers out there who do not want to part with a lot of money. This is the Camon series and I got the chance to use this year’s instalment in the series, the Tecno Camon C9.

It has 13MP cameras at the front and back, each supported by LED flashes. On first glance, the selfie camera definitely grabs your attention because it is big and smack in the middle at the top of the screen.

I sought out to see how they perform in various conditions, how usable they are for an average user and if the Camon C9 is a wise choice for all those photo lovers like myself.

Check out the video and tell me what you think about the cameras on the Camon C9 and read the full review of the device here.

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Read On Web → Tecno Camon C9 Camera Review

We have spent the last couple of weeks using Tecno’s latest smartphone, the Camon C9 and to sum up this review in just one sentence, it is one of the best smartphones one can find in the Kenyan market at the moment for its price, Kshs 18,000.

The Tecno Camon C9 picks up from where its predecessors the Camon C5 and Camon C8 left.

Like the last year duo, its main selling point, according to its makers, is the two very prominent camera sensors on the front and the back. But there’s more to the device than the camera. The cameras only tell one side of the story; the rest of the device tells another.

You can check out specifications of the Tecno Camon C9 here.

Design

When Tecno introduced the music-centred Boom J8 a few months ago, it brought with it the sandstone back cover styling that we are seeing on the black Camon C9.

As it was the case then, the Camon C9 also arrives in several colour options (Champagne Gold, Elegant Blue and Sandstone Black) which are characterized by either soft rubbery-sandstone removable back covers or soft slippery out and out plastic back covers. Either way, it’s still plastic but the sandstone-textured black model which is what we had in for review feels especially good in the hand and makes handling such a big and thick device a little easy.

Old vs New – Camon C8’s design vis-à-vis Camon C9’s

The plastic back and the glass front are separated by a thin strip of metal whose sides are interrupted by plastic cutouts meant to accommodate the device’s network radios.

The upper side of the metal frame is occupied by the centrally-placed 3.5mm audio jack, which, if the rumours are true, is bound to become an endangered species when the next batch of smartphone heavy hitters arrives later in the year. At the bottom is the microUSB port for charging the device and data transfer.

Since the device has a removable back cover, the likes of the dual-SIM and microSD card slots are accommodated behind the device upon removing the plastic cover.

To our surprise, there is only one microphone on the device which can be spotted at the bottom right next to the USB 2.0 port. That means that background noise cancellation during calls is not dealt with even though it never at any one time bothered us that much as calls were very clear.

That very loud speaker is found at the lower end of the back with the Camon branding right above it while the upper side accommodates the large 13-megapixel camera sensor and its accompanying dual-LED flash. The Tecno branding takes the centre. The speaker’s location at the back means that despite its loud output, the sound is muffled when the device is placed on a table lying up instead of face down.

While Tecno abandoned the capacitive navigation buttons on the Boom J8 in favour of on-screen controls, they are back on the Camon C9. As is the breathing/pulsating light which blinks repeatedly when there are unread notifications – messages, missed calls, etc.

The low-down of the Camon C9’s design is this: it’s stylish, the metal frame adds a nice touch, it’s good to feel thanks to that sandstone back but still looks large – because it is – and thick even though it doesn’t feel like it.

Display

The Tecno Camon C9 packs a 5.5-inch full HD LCD display that is vibrant and pixel dense. Tuned to blend well with the device’s interface, the display does just enough to withstand bright outdoor scenarios but not enough to make you not notice the shadows thanks to its not-so-good viewing angles.

Camera

Just like the Camon C8 from last year, the Camon C9 packs a 13-megapixel shooter at the back. The C9’s sensor, however, has some beefed up optics to match the many months gap between the two devices. Its selfie camera is even better with a similar sensor unlike the C8 which only had a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

Tecno’s marketing team ambitiously claims that the Camon C9 has the best cameras on a smartphone on the continent. Well, as you already guessed, that’s a bit of a stretch (a long stretch to be honest) as we’ll see in a moment. However, it sure does go the extra mile for a device of its price and status and you’re unlikely to find anything better than it in its category in the Kenyan market.

Like the previous generation of Camon smartphones, the Tecno Camon C9 also has a dedicated camera key which can be used to summon the viewfinder at a moment’s notice when long pressed and to take shots once inside the viewfinder. We found that using the camera button was a bit slower compared to just using the lock screen or home screen shortcut. There’s still another way to do that: using Tecno’s smart bracelet, the T-Band.

The T-Band has a single physical button that is entirely dedicated to firing up the camera and taking snaps. Its practicality when it comes to day-to-day use is questionable but hey, it’s another option, right?

Here are a few samples from the Camon C9’s cameras:

To know all there is to know about the Tecno Camon C9’s cameras, check out our full camera review here.

Performance

Whatever processors, GPUs, or memory a device packs, it shouldn’t matter that much as long as it is able to deliver when the users demand of it. The Tecno Camon C9’s internals do exactly that. It’s fast and responsive and save for the occasional stutters thanks to HiOS not being as well-optimized as we would like, you won’t find much to lose your head for.

Software

Even though Tecno’s HiOS interface has received a minor version bump as highlighted in our preview, there isn’t much that has changed. In fact, hardly anything has changed. However, compared with the old Tecno interface on last year’s Camon C8, the Camon C9 is a breath of fresh air even though the C8 has since received an update with HiOS.

With Android 6.0 lurking behind the glossy HiOS coat of paint, the Tecno Camon C9 is one of the few budget devices in the market with the latest Android software.

Everything we liked about HiOS when we first encountered it on the Boom J8 is still there as is everything that didn’t impress us in the first place. Like the lack of notifications on the lock screen or the mismatch in icon appearance on both the home screen and the app drawer.

Eyeprint verification is just a nice name for the standard Android face unlock albeit with a little tweaking

Tecno has cleverly tweaked the standard Android face recognition unlock mechanism to come up with Eyeprint verification. As the name suggests, it narrows down focus from one’s facial outline as is the case with the standard Android implementation to just the eyes. Until we figured out that all that the front camera of the device needed were our two eyes, we had had enough unsuccessful attempts both setting it up and subsequently logging in to the device. It’s a nice touch but a gimmick at best. You’re just fine using the usual PIN, password or pattern. A basic fingerprint sensor would’ve probably made all the difference but we are talking about a Kshs 18,000 smartphone here so we’ll be content with that.

Previously, one of the things we really liked about Tecno’s Android smartphones was that you could whiz past the set up process in no time since it did away with the many prompts to accept this or reject that – as is the case on every other device you lay your hands on. Sadly, on the Camon C9, they are back. There’s a prompt to sign in to your Tecno account and such.

Talking about a Tecno account, Tecno has also added two new apps to the usual coterie of preloaded apps, T-Band and TecnoSpot. The former, as you can easily tell, is for pairing Tecno’s smart bracelet going by the same name while the latter is simply a shortcut to a browser page of Tecno’s forums which also go by the same name. It would’ve been helpful if Tecno took the time to build an app for its forums but a shortcut doesn’t hurt either when introducing it to users who probably had no idea of its existence in the first place. The tie-in with the sign-up process feels like a forced onboarding process to be honest.

The one little thing we really liked about HiOS is that you will be prompted from time to time, say every 3 or 4 days, about apps you have not been using and given an option to freeze them. This is great since most users have no idea keeping apps they never bother to check out like the pre-installed (and outdated) Asphalt Nitro is not that advisable. Where these are irksome, they can all be uninstalled. They are not protected by the system in any way which is really good.

Battery

Battery life is the last thing most users of the Tecno Camon C9 will have to worry about. Battery life is good on this device. We averaged over 4 hours of screen on time with long use of mobile data and Bluetooth being on all the time since we had the T-Band always paired. That is impressive more so since you can’t just remove the battery and swap it every time you power it down while on the go as the battery is not removable.

Others

Tecno smartphones over the last one year have integrated gestures. The Camon C9 is no exception and double-tap to wake and other gestures like drawing C or M to launch the camera and music apps respectively is still possible and works just fine.

The device’s network performance is excellent both on 3G and LTE. Calls, as already stated, are clear all round.

Verdict

While the Camon C9 scores highly for its design, favourable pricing, battery life and, of course, the two cameras, it still has to make do with a tweaked software – HiOS – that definitely needs work.

As pointed out in the conclusion of our preview, the Tecno Camon C9’s pricing puts it in the crosshairs of other family members like the Tecno Boom J8 and the Infinix Zero 3.

Having used all the three devices, picking one is hard but not so hard.

The Camon C9 has better battery life than the Infinix Zero 3 and better cameras, obviously, than the Boom J8 even though the two one-up it in other aspects as well. Throw in Android Marshmallow and that really loud speaker at the back and you have a decent proposition that stands up to the two and any other similarly-priced device from the competition.

That Tecno is offering to replace, for free, any screen shattered up to 3 months after purchase, is a statement of faith in the device and something we don’t get to see being offered to budget smartphone buyers every other day.

Read On Web → Tecno Camon C9: It’s All About the Cameras