4Afrika – A Smartphone For Africa By Huawei & Microsoft

It seems like more and more great technology companies are interested by investing in the African market. Now it is the turn of Microsoft and Huawei to announce a smartphone for Africa. The 4Afrika is a smartphone that’s only going to be sold in Africa.

Specifications

They are not so different from those of the best mid-range smartphones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8…the 4Afrika is actually based on the Ascend W1 unveiled at CES 2013. On the menu, we have a dual-core Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 1.2GHz CPU from Qualcomm, also running an Adreno 305 GPU. All backed up with 512MB of RAM. The 4Afrika has a 4inch touch screen with a resolution of 480×800 pixels, but no information on the multi-touch has been released.

For the rest, It has a 5 mega-pixel rear facing camera, and a VGA front-facing camera. The user will have 4Gb of internal memory to play with, and this is expandable by the obligatory MicroSD card slot. The device is just 10mm thick, has a 1730 mAh Li-Polymer battery and unique power saving technology, however we don’t know what this “unique technology” is yet.

Huawei provides a range of 420 hours standby time and up to 560 minutes of talk time on 3G. WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and of course 3G will all be present and correct. The device will be available for $150 which is a good price in comparison to similar devices of this spec.

Software

On the software side, the 4Afrika boasts some specific applications designed by African developers aimed towards developers, first-time smartphone buyers, small businesses and students all of this will run on a modified version of Windows Phone 8. The Huawei 4Afrika will be available in blue, Black, Red and White, at the end of this month, in seven African countries; Angola, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa.

Help Africa grow technologically

This is clearly and exciting time for Huawei and Africa as a whole. Seeing this kind of technology become available can only be a positive thing for many Africans.

Mr Peter Hu, Managing Director of Huawei Device, Eastern & Southern Africa had this to say:

We are thrilled to be partnering with Microsoft to ensure that more people have access to leading technology, communications and information services…launching the Huawei 4Afrika we will be bringing leading technology within reach for more people in Africa, thereby giving them access to a world of new opportunities

…and Ali Faramawy, corporate Vice-President for Microsft Middle East and Africa added the following:

The Huawei 4Afrika phone is a fantastic addition to our Windows Phone product line, and we're particularly proud to be introducing it as an exclusive offer for the African Continent today as part of the launch of the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative… We believe strongly that improved access to affordable and high quality smartphones in Africa can have a strong impact on the continent's overall economic development and competitiveness, and we are confident the Huawei 4Afrika phone will help deliver on this.

Certainly you're wondering… Why Africa? As many observers have noted, interest and demand for smartphones and other enabling technologies is ramping up fast there.

“We believe there has never been a better time to invest in Africa and that access to technology—particularly cloud services and smart devices—can and will serve as a great accelerator for African competitiveness” Said Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International.

As we can see, interest is growing fast in the African market. This isn’t the first Windows phone that Africa has seen, because we can already find the Nokia Lumia 510 and 620, we can also find Samsung devices but these unfortunately are not smartphones. HTC and Motorola devices can also be found hanging around somewhere in the African bush.

The difference now lies in the price, and the Huawei 4Afrika ranks as the most affordable.This is obviously a very important detail for many Africans. Similarly, this argument is consistent with Microsoft’s new strategy for Africa, and its 4Afrika initiative was launched today. Applications specially created by African developers are included, says the giant.

Tell us what you think about it all in the comments section…