Huawei IDEOS U8150 Review

I am a self-confessed Nokia die-hard. I have stuck with them even though the performance of some of their later models of phones, especially the touchscreen ones has been less than stellar. Nokia make great hardware. I am yet to find a manufacturer that makes sturdy long lasting phones Like Nokia does. However, their software seems to leave a lot to be desired. Saying that, I still do believe that the Nokia E71 is one of the best smartphones they may. I still have mine to date and it has served me faithfully.

A friend who couldn’t understand my almost fanatical obsession with Nokia phones dared me to try another smartphone operating system. Try the iPhone or an Android phone and then tell me if you will go back to Nokia. The opportunity came when Safaricom introduced the uber-cheap Huawei IDEOS U8150 in Kenya. Retailing at 8,500 Kenya Shillings with 600MB free data and 1,000 Shillings free airtime, it was a bargain to say the least. The IDEOS had Android 2.2 (Froyo) installed. It comes with a 528 MHz ARM 11 processor, Adreno 200 GPU, Qualcomm MSM7225 chipset and 200 MB storage, 256 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM. These are pretty modest specs compared to the HTC Desire or Samsung Galaxy S. In fact, with 256MB of RAM, Flash 10 is not supported on this phone. You need at least 512MB of RAM to do that.

I convinced my pal to get me one and I got my wife one – in pink of course. If I was going to do a review, I would like to do it from two angles. I am a power user – I customise my phones extensively and push them to the limit. My wife on the other hand, though being a techie, is just beyond an average user, though I must admit at times she surprises me by finding some really advanced features. So began our journey into the Android world.

One month down the line, I guess I am converted. I am still a Nokia fan, but hey, Android rocks! The first day my wife played with the phone she said she isn’t going back to her Nokia E63. That would be the backup phone. She was amazed at the ease with which she could check her email (on gmail), facebook and surf from the phone. The only limitation was the small 2.8 inch screen, but that we soon got used to. The clarity was really good at 240x320 pixels (256K colours). I must say, it was amazing to see a small package behave so well. The capacitive touch screen was very responsive – compared to the resistive one on my Nokia N97. It was fast and pretty accurate. I liked the phone. The cheap plastic build many people have complained about didn’t bother me much since for that price, I wasn’t expecting Nokia quality build.

I went about installing apps on it like TweetDeck, Fancy Widget, Andoku (Android Sudoku), Bible Reader, Dolphin Browser (I heard it is better than the native browser), Lookout Mobile Security and a couple of games. Most apps worked fine. Initially I couldn’t get Angry Birds to install from the Android Market but somewhere later in March something must have changed because I managed to install it on both my phone and my wife’s phone. She became an instant addict.

I didn’t get to use all the features on the phone like the camera – I prefer a real camera for such things. I also used the GPS very little.

So, after a month, the strong points I picked up are:

1. Lots of free apps – Nokia Ovi Store has quite a number but those on the Android Market are so much more. Stuff I had to buy on Ovi Store I could get for free on the Android OS.
2. The OTA application installation. This is what impressed my wife and I the most. I could visit the Market on my computer, choose the application, click Install and in a few minutes it would be installed on the phone. Wish Nokia had that instead of just sending the link via SMS. That was about the coolest thing I saw on the platform.
3. Ease in connecting to email. I used my Nokia N97 to connect to my many email accounts using Nokia Messaging. It worked very well, but had no HTML emails. On the other hand the Email app on Android supports HTML email. I know on the Symbian^3 phones you can get HTML email and I think on the Nokia E72 as well, but I don’t have that experience yet. I was even able to configure the IDEOS to connect to read my work email. It was awesome. I didn’t configure all the accounts I have on the Nokia as it was just a test phone.
4. Web browsing. This was also really good. It was smooth and fast (when Safaricom didn’t have hiccups) and with HTML5 support, it worked really well on some websites. I definitely prefer the browsing experience on the IDEOS to Nokia. Dolphin Web Browser also made the experience better. I wish we had one on the S60 platform.

What I didn’t like about either the IDEOS:

1. When receiving a call, there is no built in application for speaking out the callers name like on the Nokia. I was so used to this from Nokia I missed it on the Android. I managed to get an app called SayMyName but I must say the quality doesn’t compare to Nokia. The voice is tinny and I think Nokia’s version does better with Kenyan/African names.
2. As I mentioned earlier, I am a power user, so I tend to push the phone hard. The slow processor began to show. The phone would drag and sometimes completely freeze. I thought this was because of all the apps I had installed but my wife’s phone would experience the same issues some time. It would lose all network connectivity or become totally unresponsive requiring a restart. I also noticed if the memory went below the 70MB mark, the phone would struggle to load web pages and even take time to refresh the screen – it would go blank at times. But that is what you get for a budget smartphone. I had a bit of trouble with MPESA and the IDEOS because of this. In some cases it would hang after using MPESA or if you hadn’t used MPESA for a while, you needed to restart the phone before it could properly access the SIM applications like MPESA. One other thing was that it was slow to switch between applications.
3. The phone had lots of issues with USSD. I tried it on all the networks in Kenya, and with each network it threw back MMI errors. Trying the same command on a Nokia would bring no errors. This was both for operator USSD – recharges, data balances etc as well as for Mobile Banking. Seems that the IDEOS has issues with USSD. This is a major drawback as some of the services are billable and if it throws you an error in the middle of a USSD transaction, you have to start all over again which is an extra cost. That is a huge downside.
4. Screen size of the IDEOS. At 2.8 inches, the screen is rather small. At times the keyboard covers a lot of the screen real-estate yet it is still quite small so typing messages on the keyboard is rather difficult if you have fat fingers. Otherwise at $100, it isn’t bad.
5. Inability to receive or send vCard files via Text message or MMS. This is one feature that I really enjoy on Nokia Phones. I don’t have to copy and paste numbers to send to someone. I just sent them a business card via text message and voila, they have the number they need. Android doesn’t support this so if the person is not close by then you just have to do a copy and paste. Thankfully this isn’t hard on Android. It does support vCard via Bluetooth but that means the two of you have to be in close proximity. I managed to sort this out (thanks to Skunkworks) by installing an application on the phone. Share Contacts from the Android Market adds this feaure to your IDEOS. Interestingly, HTC and Samsung SMS apps already support this feature without requiring any add on.
6. Battery Life. The IDEOS has very poor battery life especially on 3G. The best way to improve battery life is to switch to 2G or install an application like GreenPower which turns off the data connection when not in use and fires it up when you need it. The only problem is that at times it seems to hang and so switching to airplane mode solves it at times. At other times, the phone has to be rebooted. Seems there are a lot of reboot requirements for this phone. The phone has a tendency to heat up quite a bit. This is normal with 3G but on EDGE I was surprised.
7. Accelerometer response is slow at times. This can be a source of irritation waiting for the screen to change orientation.
8. One thing I found difficult and which I think I am so used to on Nokia phones is the ability to shut down an application. On Nokia, one holds down the End-Call button for long while in the application and it shuts down. This is very useful when you want to free up memory. On the IDEOS, I was unable to do it no matter how I tried. {ED - Advanced Task Killer can do this but do we have to install an app for everything?}
9. Calendar and Alerts: I love the way Nokia handles this. Even if the screen is locked, the phone will bring up a notification you can acknowledge. On the IDEOS, this was not possible. When notifying you of a calendar alert, the screen remains blank if locked and there is only an audio notification. This means you have to go and unlock the screen and then acknowledge or view the alert. I find that time wasting and utterly boring.
10. One more thing. When you connect via Wifi, it is not possible to use a proxy to browse the net. I know application like Android Market and push mail may not work, but simple web browsing doesn't work either since you cannot set up Proxy Settings. I tried various applications from the Android Market and none worked. I gave up completely. Searching on the net, I found it is an issue faced with a couple of Android phones. Some manufacturers have managed to solve it by adding settings for Wifi Proxy but interestingly, this feature is completely absent from the IDEOS.

Conclusion

In summary, for the price, the IDEOS is a great phone. Android is a great operating system. A few quirks here and there but it provides a better user experience than Nokia’s Symbian. The ease of use and intuitiveness make it easy even for a new user. So with this phone, Safaricom is sure to create lots of data addicts and ensure a good amount of revenue for itself in the data realm, given that voice prices have dropped to all time lows.

Prepaid Mobile Data Tariffs in Kenya

Hi,

I decided to do a simple comparison of data prices from the 4 mobile operators. I just took the data they had posted on their respective websites and put it in a table for comparison.

From the data, some of which was a bit confusing to interpret, I found that the only common data bundle is the 1GB or 1000MB bundle. I decided to use the 1GB as 1000MB so as to standardize the values. So from the analysis, Safaricom data is the most expensive, and yu data is the cheapest. However it must be noted that yu's information is easily misunderstood. The one point to note is that only Safaricom has a 3G network and all the other 3 - yu, Orange and Airtel are on EDGE.

On a side note, interestingly, in some places I find that Orange and yu only have plain old GPRS within Nairobi environs. With Airtel and Safaricom, I haven't encountered that yet. Their signals have always been good enough to get at least EDGE coverage.

Data is below:

Price Comparisons

Sources: Safaricom, Airtel, yu, Orange

Katiba Debate

Got this from Facebook where a very interesting discussion is going on. For more info, visit the Soma Katiba group on Facebook - link here .

Otherwise some content on merits and demerits of the proposed constitution:

by Kimathi Kamencu

Merits

Chapter 1
1. The introduction of a Preamble is a step forward. You will remember (from yesterday’s discussion) that we had noted the lack of “local ownership” of our independence constitution. The preamble sets us out as a distinct people with a distinct history.

Chapter 2
2. The recognition of the Devolved Government structure is also a positive provision in the PNC. You may have heard it said that some people groups in Kenya regard a journey to Nairobi as a visit to Kenya. It is hoped that the devolved structure will provide a framework that is real and equitable. More comments on this when we discuss the relevant chapter.

3. Recognition of Kiswahili as a national language is like music to my soul! I recall having recently read a poem entitled “English is a stupid language”. Well, whereas I wouldn’t go this far, I do think that Kiswahili is a language that is just as good (if not better) than English. To add to this, is the fact that it is our own, one of the jewels of our heritage. Like one of the 8 – 4 -4 text books one would wish to say “Kiswahili kitukuzwe!”

4. The inclusion of national values in the constitution is an important step in setting out for government what we, as citizens, expect whenever governmental power is being exercised. My heart is greatly pained whenever corruption is uncovered or when I see the dishonorable treatment of people in what are commonly called “operations”. Will this provision really bring these things to a halt? Your bet is as good as mine.

5. Culture (and particularly intellectual property/innovations) has been included and this is good. To quote the Final COE report to the National Assembly:

“…in an age when there have been external attempts to alienate, privatize and patent the indigenous knowledge, intellectual property rights and innovations of Kenyan communities such as the ciondo and kikoi, it is important to provide for the protection of intellectual property.”

Chapter 3
6. The chapter on citizenship has made ground in leveling the plain amongst genders. First of all, it provides no limitation to the right of a child acquiring citizenship by birth so long as either one of his parents is a Kenyan by birth. Secondly, men who are married to Kenyan women are entitled to apply for Kenyan citizenship.

7. In a world that now is being referred to as a “global village”, dual citizenship is a timely provision. Who knows, perhaps this may lure President Obama to retire to K’Ogello rather than Illinois!

Demerits

Chapter 1
1. Article 2 (6) is a worrisome provision. It seems to give automatic constitutional status to international agreements that Kenya has agreed to. It is not clear why this provision was included by the COE in this final draft given that all previous drafts did not contain it. Further, all the other COE drafts required treaties to be considered and approved by Parliament. This provision has been deleted and no explanation is given in the final COE report.

Given this state of affairs, it is possible for the State President to enter into international agreements that may be inconsistent with the will of the Kenyan people. These provisions would be on an equal footing with other provisions of the Constitution.

2. Article 3 provides for defense of the constitution. To defend the constitution, one should know what is says. As such, it would have been good if an additional provision were included to provide for dissemination and education on the Constitution.

Chapter 2
3. There has been much debate on Article 8 which provides that “there shall be no state religion”.

The initial Harmonized Draft by the COE contained three provisions: (a) State and religion shall be separate; (b) There shall be no state religion; and (c) The state shall treat all religions equally. Provisions (a) & (c) were removed by the Parliamentary Select Committee.

In the absence of the provision “the state shall treat all religions equally” there is concern that favoritism may be shown to some religion(s) over others.

Chapter 3
4. The provision on “foundlings” (Article 14) is also of concern. Given the fact that Kenya has numerous porous borders and a significantly more robust economy than many of its neighbors, it is possible that this provision may be misused. Where the country receives a huge influx of such foundlings (who will be presumed to be citizens), this could have negative effects in the long run.

The COE was requested to amend this provision so that such children would be required to apply for citizenship. However, they declined on the basis that it would be hard for the children to apply. In the alternative, they introduced a provision (Article 17) that would allow for nullification where the child is shown to be a citizen of another country.

Constitution Must Treat All Religions Equally

A Commentary by Pete Ondeng and Peter Waiyaki

The public discourse on whether or not the Kadhi Courts should be included in the constitution has been wrongly interpreted by many to be a Christian vs Muslim affair. The often uninformed rhetoric by hard liners on both sides of the argument adds an unnecessary and potentially explosive element to the already charged political atmosphere.

The issue here is not about religion, but about the constitution. The move to change the current constitution springs from an acknowledgement by most people that there are wrongs in the document that need to be made right. There are some basic rights, for instance, that the original constitution did not address, and which need to be enshrined in the new document. Similarly, there were some provisions that were included by those who negotiated the Lancaster House document that no longer hold water and need to be scrapped.

The Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) retreat in Naivasha, which was expected by many to degenerate into an ODM vs PNU muscle-flexing contest, pleasantly surprised the nation by reaching consensus on almost all of the so-called contentious issues.

In regard to the Kadhi Courts, however, the PSC missed the point and actually went astray. Curiously, the draft constitution that emerged from that retreat omitted a simple but critical phrase that had appeared in all the many draft constitutions that have been produced since the first one in 2002. All previous versions of the Draft Constitution have consistently stated categorically that “State and religion will be separate, there will be no state religion and that all religions will be treated equally. These provisions have now been removed, leaving only that There Will Be No State Religion. Most people are not aware that this small but significant change was made in Naivasha.

Why was this phrase removed, and what would be the significance of its absence in the constitution? The only logical conclusion would be that the new constitution does not acknowledge all religions as equal.

The Constitution enunciates equality for all citizens. Further it provides that nobody shall be discriminated against by reason of their religion, among other things. Unfortunately, the Kadhi courts are themselves an institutionalization of inequality. They seek to favour one religion over others by creating and protecting and providing for state funding of a purely religious system of dispute resolution.

One of the central arguments from those who advocate for Kadhi courts to be included in the constitution is that the courts have been in the constitution since independence. This is very true. The courts did not accidentally end up in the constitution but were a part of the negotiations between Jomo Kenyatta and the Sultan of Zanzibar which led to the 10 mile coastal strip being incorporated into the Republic of Kenya at independence. However, these historical reasons and context no longer apply. What was then a concession to a small part of the country and a very small part of the population has now become a demand and a right applicable to the whole country.

Excluding the Kadhi courts from the new constitution would not in any way hinder the rights of Muslims to worship Allah or to establish courts and other mechanism of dispute resolution. The role of the Kadhi as a religious office will remain intact, organized and funded by the Muslim community, in the same way as other religions will be required to fund their own activities.

The only effect of not including the courts in the constitution would be that, like for all other religions, there would be no funding using tax payers money, and the offices for Kadhis would be recognized rightly as religious offices, and not government office. Most importantly, the draft constitution that will soon be presented to Kenyans for a referendum must include the important clause removed by the PSC: that all religions will be treated equally.

Pete Ondeng is a development economist & author of Africa’s Moment; Peter Waiyaki is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya

Reaching out to the world

President Obama says He Prays "all the time now"

Aimee Herd (July 29, 2009)

"This is something where you just hope that you are aligning your work with His purposes, and that you're attuned to the needs of the people you're there to serve."

In a recent Nightline interview, President Obama told ABC News' Terry Moran that his prayer habits have intensified since taking office, and that he prays "all the time now."

"I've got a lot of stuff on my plate and I need guidance all the time," Obama said in the interview.

He told Moran that before he was elected, he used to pray each night. Obama reportedly receives a devotional and prayer sent to his BlackBerry every morning from Pastor Joshua DuBois, the director of the president's Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Initiative. (Photo: LATimes)

Obama candidly added, "I think that every president who's had [this job] is constantly humbled by the degree to which there are a lot of issues out there and the notion that one person alone can solve all these problems—I think you're cured of that illusion very quickly."

Read more of this Christian Post article at the source link provided.

Source: Eric Young – Christian Post

BULLY! PULPIT NEWS WORLD EXCLUSIVE: MICHAEL JACKSON

FACING A MASSIVE TOUR HE WAS ILL-PREPARED FOR, A DESPERATE MICHAEL JACKSON REACHED OUT TO GOSPEL SUPERSTAR ANDRAE CROUCH AND HIS MINISTER SISTER SANDRA FOR SOLACE IN HIS LAST DAYS

Los Angeles, California, (Bully! Pulpit News)---Facing a grueling concert schedule, Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed King of Pop reached out to two old friends-legendary Gospel singer Andrae Crouch and his twin sister, singer and minister, Sandra, desperately seeking inspiration for a tour he was ill-prepared for, a few weeks before his tragic death.

But news of the meeting spiraled out of control as a series of blogs and emails raced around the world proclaiming that Jackson had converted to Christianity at the end of one of their meetings, raising hopes, especially among Jackson’s African-American fans that Jackson, a onetime member of the Jehovah’s Witness sect, who had reportedly converted to Islam in 2008, had become a Christian.

The news was first widely circulated on her website by Erica Campbell, a member of the Grammy-award winning duo Mary-Mary who, under the banner headline “Good News-RIP Michael Jackson,” wrote: “Last night we received some good news from Terri McFaddin-Solomon who is good friends with Sandra Crouch. Three weeks ago Sandra and Andrae spent some time with their close friend, Michael Jackson. Michael asked Andrae to play, "It Won't Be Long And We'll Be Leaving Here." Michael then prayed with Sandra and Andre and accepted Christ into his heart. Now he's singing in the heavenly choir! Our hearts rejoice!”

But according to Sandra Crouch, that may not quite be the full story. On a posting on her Facebook page Crouch wrote: “Not sure where that came from. We loved and respected Michael and will continue to pray for his family. All the extra is not from us.”

For his part, through a spokesman, Andrae Crouch attempted to further clarify the story:

“Andrae and Sandra did in fact visit with Michael Jackson two times, once at the recording studio, and once at his home in the last two months, as recently as three weeks ago, asking for prayer concerning the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and how he could make his music more ‘spiritual,’" noted Crouch’s Facebook administrator. “So Andrae and Sandra explained to him about the anointing and about Jesus. He wanted to know what makes your hands go up, and makes you ‘come out of yourself,’ and what gives a ‘spirituality’ to the music? He then requested to hear his favorite song that he loves and wanted then to sing to him, so they...joined hands and sang together, and he said, ‘it was beautiful.’ He first heard it in New York, and loved it and wanted it on tape. He had the engineer tape the song sang to him by Andrae and Sandra. He definitely had an encounter with them.”

As to whether or not the legendary singer had prayed to receive Christ, through his spokesman Crouch responded: “He did NOT reject Jesus or the prayer when (we) prayed, and gladly joined in prayer.”

“He usually doesn’t touch anybody, but he touched them, and held their hands in a circle as they sang and prayed,” continued Andrae Crouch’s spokesman. “There was NO actual ‘sinners prayer’ however, but they did talk and pray about Jesus and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. They also told him, ‘Michael, we consider you as our son,’ and he said, “yes, yes, yes” and gave him his latest music on a CD, and he told him, ‘Andrae I trust you with this,’ and gave him CD’s of 2 songs......unpublished, beautiful music.”

The Crouch’s reported one peculiarity about Jackson’s rented home: forbidden as a child from celebrating Christmas because of his Jehovah’s Witness faith which precludes such celebration, Jackson was still celebrating Christmas in June: “

“He still had his Christmas decorations up at home,” noted Crouch’s spokesman.