First African – designed smartphone and tablet released

Posted on Dec 28 2012 - 9:53am by Olukunle Moses

From BBC source, we got a news that; VMK a Congolese company owned by Verone Mankou has successfully designed a smartphone and tablet which are already manufactured in China, and this will be the first African – designed smartphone and tablet. The product has been successfully launched.

Way C, first African – designed smartphone and tablet

First African - designed smartphone

The smartphone will retail at $170, while the tablet goes for $300.

As Mr Mankou said at the Tech4Africa conference in Johannesburg, “Only Africans can know what Africa needs, Apple rules the US, Samsung controls Asia, we want VMK to be huge for Africa.”

Smartplanet technology blog reported that the tablet packs a 4 GB internal storage and Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s been named Way-C, which means “the light of the stars” in the Lingala local language.

First African - designed smartphone

The first African – designed smartphone comes with a rear and front facing camera with a 3.5 inch (8.9cm) screen.

These devices is planned to sell across 10 other West Africa countries as well as in France, Belgium, and India.

Mr Mankou aims at launching a cheaper tablet for the student consumers next year.

The African – designed smartphone and tablet devices will rival the already popular and well established brands.

Research in Motion, makers of Blackberry brands has already taken the continent, despite the fact that it is routing western market, but the African consumers has an habit of supporting and patronizing their local made products.

Some of the offensive situations Africans has faced includes, companies criticized of making product offshore and deceiving the continent audience that they are locally made products.

VMK argued that the African-designed smartphone and tablets were manufactured in China for cost reasons, but the entire engineering and designed is exclusively done in Africa.

On the company’s website was a statement which says; “We are somewhat offended by the disregard of those who persist in denying the authentication of our products, despite evidence.

“Most of those critics are either Afro-pessimistic (who argue that ‘nothing good can come from Africa’), or just (future) competitors.”

VMK stressed that there is no other such product matching these African – designed smartphone and tablets on the continent.

Are you an African or fan who has been expecting an African-designed smartphone or a tablet, this is something for you, and the price are far less than that of the one we got from the US and Asia.

Will you try them out when they finally get to market? Lets hear your view of this!

 

About the Author

Olukunle Moses is currently the editor-in-chief for TechAtLast Media Blogs Network. You can find him on twitter via @olumoche, Facebook and on Google+. Read more of my posts via @Olumoche

18 Comments so far. Feel free to join this conversation by dropping unbiased comments, suggestions and tips. Here's the quick commandment for commenting here. (1). No keywords in names - please use your real name. (2). No off-topic comment (3). You cannot abuse anyone here. Better still, make sure to read our Commenting Policy and Guidelines - please note that failure to do so will result in direct ban if we notice anything fishy in your engagement here. Thanks for understanding

  1. Matthew January 21, 2013 at 9:45 am - Reply

    Proud to be African .Its really awesome smartphone style ..
    Stunning job.
    Thanks for the sharing.

  2. Sam January 4, 2013 at 12:34 pm - Reply

    The design and specifications make me attracted towards this amazing looking Way-C Smartphone and I would definitely love to use it once. The cost of this seems pretty affordable; I would love to know more detail specification about this Smartphone. Good going Africans…

  3. Ryon January 2, 2013 at 11:10 am - Reply

    The smart phone really looks cool and i wish to have a hold of it.The specifications of the phone looks quite good and i really wish to it soon.The price that has been set for this phone looks quite affordable.Thanks bro for sharing this information.

  4. safe December 31, 2012 at 1:47 pm - Reply

    thanks to give information

  5. safepccleaner December 31, 2012 at 1:46 pm - Reply

    you are give amaging the new giving some information

  6. sheshnath December 30, 2012 at 3:26 pm - Reply

    Nice design looking cool, hope its features will also be good. Thanks for sharing

  7. Chris Summers December 30, 2012 at 2:41 pm - Reply

    Wow. Both the tablet and the phone look amazing. Will they be in sale in Europe as well?

  8. Adil December 30, 2012 at 3:33 am - Reply

    this thing is beautiful

  9. aapsquar December 29, 2012 at 9:26 pm - Reply

    really nice design. Thanks

  10. Beloka December 29, 2012 at 8:46 pm - Reply

    Really nice post Olukunle!
    i want to use this type of smartphone

  11. PrIyAnGsHu December 28, 2012 at 11:46 am - Reply

    The design of the device looks really awesome. Thanks for sharing buddy.

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