Author: Kaluka wanjala

Last week, Tecno officially unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Phantom 8. The phone was launched in Dubai and the company did not reveal when it will be available in Kenya and for how much. The phone has already been launched in Nigeria where it is available for N128,000 (approximately Ksh 37,000). In Kenya, Tecno is yet to officially unveil the Phantom 8 but some retailers are selling it for as low as Ksh 32,000. I have seen the phone with one retailer, Phone Place Kenya, for that price. Given that Tecno is yet to say anything about the availability…

If you have ever wanted to delete WhatsApp messages that you have sent, you should be happy to know that it is now possible to do so. This is one of the most requested features and started rolling out to users last week to select users. You can delete a message if you have sent it to the wrong person or if it has a mistake. To delete a message you have sent, just tap and hold the message and choose the delete option at the top. You can do this for both individual and group chats. When you choose…

If you have been waiting for Android 8.1, you should know that the first over the air (OTA) update has started rolling out. This is the beta build and comes shortly after the first Developer Preview went live. To get the OTA update, you will need to have enrolled to be part of the Android Beta Program. If you are part of the Program, you should be getting a notification if you have not received one yet. It goes without saying that to be part of the Android Beta Program, you need to have a Pixel or Nexus smartphone. If…

HMD promised us that all the new Nokia smartphones will be getting Android Oreo update before the end of the year. The company also said that these will be among the first Android smartphones to get the update when it is available. HMD is able to promise this because these phones come with near stock Android. Given that Android Oreo is already out, HMD has been hard at work finalizing the update before it pushes it out to its devices. HMD has actually released the first beta version of Android Oreo for the Nokia 8. HMD has launched a new…

Samsung is currently working on Android Oreo update for some of its devices. This update will get to select Samsung devices in the end but it will take time. According to Samsung Turkey, the update will start rolling out in early 2018. No exact date or month has been given but my guess is that we will see the update get to the Galaxy Note 8 and the S8 family before the Galaxy S9 is unveiled. Keep in mind that information about Android Oreo has so far been shared by Samsung Turkey. It published that on a blog post and…

Vivo is a smartphone brand not many people in Kenya know about. Vivo is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer that was founded in 2009 and has focused on India and South East Asia markets. It has some notable device on the market but given the fact that it has never focused on this part of the world, we haven’t heard so much about its devices. Vivo is owned by the same company that own OPPO, the smartphone manufacturer that has been aggressively marketing its latest smartphones, the A71 and the F3. BBK Electronics is the company that owns Vivo and OPPO…

Tecno’s latest flagship smartphone, the Phantom 8 has finally been unveiled. The company unveiled the device yesterday at an event in Dubai. The Tecno Phantom 8 takes over from the Phantom 6 and 6 Plus that we saw last year. As you have probably figured out, the company has skipped the number ‘7’ to go straight with the ‘8’ probably to align itself with some of the other manufacturers such as Samsung with the Galaxy S8 and Note 8 and Apple with the iPhone 8. If you thought the 8 in the name means the Phantom 8 is coming with…

HMD Global has added another smartphone to its 2017 lineup. The new smartphone is the Nokia 7 that was unveiled in China and is the device sitting between the current flagship, the Nokia 8 and the Nokia 6. The Nokia 7 is the first smartphone from the company to come with a glass body. It has Corning Gorilla Glass finish on both the front and the back. The chassis on the other hand is made using 7000-series aluminium. We have been seeing other smartphone manufacturers embracing the glass on the front and back design and HMD does not want to…

Xiaomi has undoubtedly curved a niche for itself in the competitive smartphone market. The success the company has had is something most other smartphone manufacturers can only dream about. The company has even bigger targets this year as it plans to ship 90 million smartphones by the end of the year. Last year, Xiaomi shipped 58 million smartphones so 90 million is almost double that. The company announced that it shipped over 10 million smartphones last month (September) so getting to 98 million isn’t far-fetched. This will be higher than the company’s best year (2015) when it shipped over 70…

The latest public available version of Google’s mobile OS is Android 8.0 Oreo which was released to the public not so long ago. manufacturers are yet to push the update to their devices and so far only those who have it are those who own the most recent Nexus devices and the Pixel smartphones. Even with that said, most of the top smartphone manufacturers have promised that they will update their devices by the end of the year. For Google, having the latest update on its Nexus and Pixel devices is definitely a plus. The company has promised to make…