Author: Kaluka wanjala

HMD Global has just expanded its budget portfolio in Kenya with the launch of the Nokia 1 in Kenya. The phone has a recommended retail price of Ksh 9,500 across the country. This is currently the cheapest Nokia smartphone in the country and joins the Nokia 2 that has been around since 2017. At Ksh 9,500, the Nokia 1 is competitively priced as it is one of the cheapest smartphones in the Android One program. Speaking of Android, the Nokia 1 comes with Android Oreo (Go Edition). This is the version of Android that is specifically made for devices with…

Equity Bank’s EazzyBanking App just got an update that makes it easier for users to send and receive money from any mobile money wallet or any account in other banks. This update comes less than two weeks after Mobile Money interoperability went live in Kenya. With Mobile Money interoperability, it is now easier for users of one network to send money to those of the other networks. Airtel was one of the company’s excited with this move since this means that anyone with an Airtel Money account can send money to those on Safaricom’s M-Pesa without the hassle that was…

Jumia is one of the well-known e-commerce platforms in Kenya and even in Africa. The company may not be profitable just yet but almost everyone who spends a significant time online knows about it. Over the years, Jumia has built a name for itself to become the “Amazon of Africa”. The company is yet to achieve this status but it is still the most popular ecommerce platform here. If you are a business person and have been looking for ways to expand your business to target customers online, getting started on Jumia is something you ought to consider. The company…

Tecno’s latest smartphone, the Camon X, is finally available in Kenya. The phone was officially unveiled in Nigeria a couple of weeks back and is now available in Kenya through Jumia. As for price, Jumia is selling the Tecno Camon X in Kenya for Ksh 19,000. We expected the price to be around Ksh 20,000 this is not far off from our expectations. The Tecno Camon X is primarily a camera phone with a 20MP selfie camera and a 16MP main camera at the back. I have compared the cameras of the Tecno Camon X to those on the OPPO…

Truecaller today announced that it has reached over 100 million active users. In less than a year, the app has leapfrogged from 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) per month to 100 million daily active users (DAUs), and is growing faster than ever. With more than 20% of its user base in Africa, Truecaller app service identifies more than half a billion calls a monthly in the region, and 50 percent of SMS received are spam. In Kenya the application blocks and filters more than 4.4 million calls and 14 million spam SMSes per month. The world has come a…

Tecno’s most recent camera centric smartphone is the Camon X that was officially unveiled a couple of weeks ago. This phone is competing directly with the OPPO F5 that we have had on the market for a few months now. Given that these phones are marketed as having superior cameras, I decided to take a few shots just to see what they have to offer. The Tecno Camon X is not yet available in Kenya but its price should be around Ksh 20,000 while the OPPO F5 is already available in the country for Ksh 30,000. This is not a…

Google plans to make some changes to Gmail this year and one of them will be “Self-destructing” emails. These emails have been around for sometime now but Google has never incorporated them into Gmail. Some websites offer this option where the emails are deleted once the recipient has opened and read them. Not everyone needs such an option but there are surely those who may be pleased that Google is looking at it. Self-destructing emails are part of Google’s major redesign of Gmail that includes the addition of a “confidential mode” to offer users more security features. Self-destruct is just…

The latest Android Distribution numbers for April paint a not so good picture of the Android ecosystem. The numbers show that the current publicly available version, Android Oreo, has a market share of 4.6%. This means that this version of Android that has been out for about 7 months is installed in less than 5% of all Android devices. This is not a surprise as we have seen this over and over again, adoption of the latest version of Android has never been that high. The reason for the slow adoption has something to do with the device manufacturers. Most…

Sony is not the same smartphone company it was a few years ago. The company is not that popular as it used to be but it still makes some amazing devices. For years, Sony has focused on premium devices with amazing cameras and it still keeps doing this even though it is not as vocal as most other manufacturers. The latest smartphone from Sony is the Xperia XZ2 Premium that the company has unveiled today. The Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium is the first smartphone by the company to come with a dual camera setup. We have seen a good number…

HMD Global is about to add a new Nokia smartphone to its ever-growing portfolio. This new smartphone will be the Nokia X and will be unveiled on April 27 in China. It is not strange for HMD to unveil a new Nokia smartphone in China first before it makes them available in other markets. The company has been doing this ever since the first edition Nokia 6 in 2016. Digital posters of the Nokia X have been spotted in a movie theatre in China and this means that the device exists somewhere and will be unveiled at the indicated date.…