Safaricom has finally unveilled the much tauted Huawei IDEOS U8150. I first had an experience in the last Safaricom Open Day where the Huawei stand had the IDEOS U8150 and S7. There was abit of a problem in getting much of an experience from there but a few phone calls helped easen the situation.
The IDEOS U8150 was launched in September 2010 and boasts an Android 2.2 (Froyo) OS. It is a great phone with various cons like non support of flash. The phone also has plastic casing and that we understand was to keep the price down. Infact I think safaricom has done some bit of subsidising the phone since during the release in September 2010, Huawei projected retail price of almost 150 USD ( Ksh 12,000).
Safaricom is expected to maintain there high prices on data bundles and not give any real unlimited data bundle soon considering that they still have the technological advantage in the sector. Safaricom is also facing very stiff challenges in the sector with Airtel eating a very good part of their market in the recent price war.
The management at Safaricom are trying to put up brave face but going by the discussions in various mailing lists, the consumer is tired and ready for lowered charges.
Back to IDEO U8150, the phone boasts a 3.2 MP camera, No LED, 240×320 resolution. The phone might look clunky especially in the so common Android OS but the phone is a great move by the manufacturer and operators like Safaricom to bring the real smartphone technology to the masses.
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