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Huawei unveils African Windows phone

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 05 Feb 2013
Huawei's new 4Afrika smartphone, a customised version of the Huawei Ascend W1, will be available in SA at the end of March.
Huawei's new 4Afrika smartphone, a customised version of the Huawei Ascend W1, will be available in SA at the end of March.

Global ICT solutions provider Huawei today launched the first "Windows Phone 4Afrika".

Selected to help boost mobile accessibility and adoption within the fast-growing African continent, the Huawei 4Afrika will be available from Huawei in SA, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Angola and Morocco towards the end of March.

Peter Hu, MD of Huawei Device for eastern and southern Africa, says the company's partnership with Microsoft and the launch of a Windows phone targeted at the African market will go a long way to ensuring more people have access to "leading technology, communications and information services".

The new smartphone is a customised version of the Huawei Ascend W1, unveiled earlier this year at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show.

Phone specs

The Huawei 4Afrika is 10.15mm thin and features a four-inch IPS LCD 480x800 touch-screen with Zero-Gap Touch technology.

With a 1730 mAh Li-Polymer battery and power-saving technology, the Huawei 4Afrika phone provides up to 420 hours of standby time and up to 560 minutes of talk time on 3G. The higher efficiency hardware design ensures power-saving up to 20%. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 dual-core 1.2GHz processor and Adreno 305 GPU.

Additionally, the phone includes a 5 MP auto-focus camera and VGA front camera, and comes in various colours, including blue, black and white (initially), and red to follow in the next couple of months.

Huawei says the 4Afrika phone features a customised applications store featuring applications and exclusive content, "including those built and designed by Africans for Africans".

The Windows Phone 8 start screen allows users to customise the Windows OS Live Tiles with topics of personal interest. The phone also features Microsoft Office and Skydrive.

Ali Faramawy, corporate VP for Microsoft Middle East and Africa, says the Huawei 4Afrika phone is a "fantastic addition" to the technology company's Windows Phone product line. "We are 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."

Faramawy says Microsoft believes improved access to affordable and high-quality smartphones in Africa stands to have a strong impact on the continent's overall economic development and competitiveness.

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