Author: Kaluka wanjala

Pangea has shortlisted 11 start-ups who will be considered for funding of up to 50,000 USD per startup. The 11 start-ups companies are drawn from Kenya-9, Egypt -1 and Nigeria-1. The selection panel, consisting of experts from Innovation Norway, BDO EA, Mastercard Foundation and Longitude Finance, commented that the selection process was a tough exercise. “The initial expectation was that we would settle on 10 companies but we ended up with a list of 11. This is evidence that a good number of the start-ups made a strong business case. We were spoilt for choice” said Jane Save Ndungo, a senior market…

Tecno has just unveiled the Camon X and Camon X Pro smartphones in Nigeria. These are camera-centric devices but are not the only devices the company has introduced. Tecno has also taken the stage to introduce its new smartphone series, the Tecno F Series. The company is saying the new F series will be its new mid-range line-up that will join the Phantom, the Camon, the L series among others. With the F Series, Tecno says that they will also have impressive cameras even though that is not their unique selling point We will have to put them to the…

Tecno has finally unveiled its latest camera-centric device, the Tecno Camon X Pro. This phone has been unveiled in Nigeria and will be available in Kenya in Mid-April. The Tecno Camon X Pro has a 24MP selfie camera which is just crazy to think about. Huawei recently unveiled the P20 Pro that also had a 24MP front facing camera and I was not expecting Tecno to do the same this year. The Camon X Pro is not the only device the company has unveiled, we also got to see the standard Camon X that has a 20MP front facing camera.…

The latest smartphone from Tecno, the Camon X, has finally been unveiled and we do have a review unit. With that, I thought it was a good idea to show you guys what you will be getting in the box and give you my first impressions of this new phone. Before we get to that, we’ve got to learn a few things about the Camon X. it is the successor to the Tecno Camon CX and CX Air from 2017. It’s main selling point is the 20MP front facing camera, if you are planning to buy its big brother, the…

Equity Bank has today announced a review of withdrawal charges on its Equity PayPal Withdrawal service. Effective March this year, the new tariffs will see users pay as low as 1% on withdrawals made from their PayPal account. While announcing the new development, Equity Bank Group CEO and MD, Dr. James Mwangi noted: “Financial inclusion continues to remain at the core of our business strategy. We have listened to our customers and introduced new tiered withdrawal charges.” The new rates for withdrawals from PayPal to Equity bank accounts will see customers withdrawing $5001 and above being charged 1% of the…

The cheapest Nokia smartphone by HMD Global is coming to Kenya. The company says that this smartphone, the Nokia 1, will be available in the country as from April 16 for Ksh 9,500. This is the recommended retail price and you will probably be able to get it for less depending on where you buy it from. The Nokia 1 is the first smartphone by the company to run Android Oreo (Go Edition). This is a version of Android that is specifically made for entry level devices with 1GB or RAM or less. This version of Android also comes with…

A couple of days back, Huawei unveiled its latest flagship family, the P20 series. The company was very vocal about this device as it was expected and made sure everyone knows it exists. Fast forward a couple of days later and the company is back with another smartphone, the Huawei Y7 Prime 2018. The company has quietly unveiled this device without the pomp and colour we saw a couple of days back. The Huawei Y7 Prime 2018 is a mid-range smartphone that borrows a few things from the company’s current flagships, the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro. To keep up…

HMD Global is keeping its word of pushing out regular and timely updates to its devices. When the company re-introduced the new Nokia smartphones, it said that since its devices come with near stock Android, it will be able to push out the latest updates faster than most other manufacturers. The company is now pushing out Android 8.1 Oreo to both the Nokia 5 and the original Nokia 6. This update was pushed out to the Nokia 8 last month and is finally available for Nokia 5 and 6 owners. The two devices got Android 8.0 Update in January and…

Most of you reading this have probably heard about Branch, the mobile loan application. It makes it easier and convenient for individuals and small businesses to acquire loans that would otherwise be difficult to get from traditional financial institutions. Branch describes itself as a service that uses data science to dramatically reduce the cost of delivering financial services in emerging markets. It already has one million borrowers and its currently one of the top 5 applications in Kenya. Branch has had a successful run in Kenya and now the mobile “branchless bank” wants to expand to other emerging countries after…

Yesterday, Huawei introduced the P20 smartphone series to the world. The devices here include the P20, P20 Lite and the P20 Pro. With these devices, we get a slightly upgraded design for the P series. We are also getting better cameras that have the same Leica branding that we have come to associate premium devices from Huawei with. The new Huawei P20 devices have almost bezel-less displays, something we sort of expected on such a premium series. Huawei chose to include the dreaded notch and this breaks the smooth almost bezel-less aspect. This notch is not just there for the…