The $100 smartphone price barrier is broken! Nokia recently announced the 2730 Classic and Synchronica released the MessagePhone. Both mobile phones will retail for $100 or less across the developing world.

Price is also the major selling point for the Vodaphone 150, a self-proclaimed "world's cheapest mobile phone". Its only $15. But it only supports SMS and voice. Which brings us to an interesting question:

Which is better: price or functionality?

You could argue that its better to have something, even a stripped down $15 mobile phone, than nothing. But is price really the only factor? Even for the poorest, I would argue not. Consider the $35 Simu ya Solar which has its own solar panel, a perfect phone charging solution.

In addition, Ken Banks points out the "emerging market" handset trap with these low-end phones:

The prices may have changed, but functionality has largely stagnated. You couldn’t browse the web on the Motorola in 2005, nor the ZTE in 2008, and today you’d have the same problem on the Vodafone 150. You can’t download applications onto any of them, either. They all have monochrome screens and look pretty-much-the-same despite having a five year gap between them. Very little has changed other than price

More mobile phone functionality, please

Voice is the killer mobile phone application - bar none. Next up, SMS is the most popular application - bust should it continue to hold that title? For multiple reasons, I believe that Africa's mobile phone future is IP based, not SMS. To gain, IP needs data enabled phones. Handsets like the 2730 and the MessagePhone.

So while I applaud Vodaphone for cutting costs, might all this gone a bit too far? Could we have innovation on functionality at a higher price point? I could see a $50 smartphone having greater impact than a $15 voice/SMS phone.

A $50 smartphone would drive data usage out to rural areas now limited to SMS-only. It would also allow for much greater opportunities by all the actors involves - rural communities and the business and development organizations that want to reach them.

A $50 smartphone would also challenge the high costs of smartphones in the developed world. A South to North innovation we all could applaud.

Recycled computers have their place - they're great for those with limited means to access ICT. Yet they can often be more harm than help, especially when they're dumped as e-waste or retard local hardware innovation and sales.

Second hand computers for sale

Which is why it seems that Uganda is having so much difficulty banning used computers. They came out with a blanket ban on second-hand PC's last year, with a deadline moved back to March 31, 2010.

Now State Minister for Trade Tourism and Industry Gagawala Wambuzi told The EastAfrican that Uganda is adopting a more targeted approach.

Hopefully this means they'll be looking at the quality and usage model for used electronics - allowing in technology that's actually current and meant for resale, and banning e-dumping.

When was the last time you used a pay phone booth in an African country? I'm not talking about a pay phone as in borrowing someone's cell for a few bob, or the ubiquitous plastic phones where you make a call on a timer. I am talking about an actual phone booth pay phone.

I cannot even remember seeing them in Kenya or Nigeria. I think I saw a few in Tanzania, but I know I never used one.

Now Edward Scotcher of Africa Gathering has found when they've all gone. It seems that old pay phone booths go to the Lamu phone booth graveyard to die.

TechMasai deleted republished this post, but I think its still worthy, so I'm republishing it here. Be sure to also check out the original.

The Negative Effects of All The Used Exported PCs From Europe Which Are Coming To Africa

Used computers from Europe, or from African corporate companies are what Africans have and are starting to use as a way to get on the technological bandwagon. It is not totally clear how old used computers get to Africa, but what is clear is that they are here to stay.

The general consensus is computers are either transported by European officials to Africa to get dumped, or they are imported conscious by a middleman to sell back home.

Once in Africa, the PCs are sold through normal distribution models to the public, at a tenth of the price of a new model. The most prevalent models of CPUs support windows 1995 to Windows XP. The computer monitors most popular is the big screen retro one made famous by windows 1995.

The use of antique computers is not the best solution but is extremely practical. In a population where the average GDP is about 100 dollars, cheap affordable computing is a definitive plus. This is not to say they are no consequences to cheap computers in Africa.

The availability of cheap imported computers in effect strangle a location population of innovators and developers from trying to develop hardware solutions and products to cater for their very own local market. The flood of cheap old laptops gives revenue to the people who sell them to us, but actually hinder innovation and growth in our countries by taking away market share.

In the short term old laptops being sold in Africa have advantages, like

* Cheap affordable hardware to a growing computer literate population
* Revenue and employment to those who work in the industry
* Growing computer proficiency for the local population

In the long term though Africa faces the greatest threat to innovation and development. The continued presence of old reused computers is practical in the short term, but if Africa ever wants to develop our own hardware and provide electronic solutions to a world market, eventually the market will have to be closely monitored.

This article ignored the environmental pollution caused by old reused laptops dumped in Africa. For that is the embedded video

Back when Geekcorps was deploying Internet connectivity to rural radio stations in Mali - literally beyond Timbuktu - we opted for solid-state drives (also called SSD or flash drives) in our custom built computers to ruggedize them. The threat of dust was just too great to use spinning media. The pervasive Saharan sand would eat regular hard drives.

But outside of this rare, harsh location, do you really need a solid-state drive?

Now that I'm at Inveneo, I've noticed we're no longer recommending solid-state hard drives in the majority of our deployments. We’re finding that hard disk drives (HDD or hard drives) can stand up to the unforgiving environment in rural areas much better than we expect.

We’re thinking that hard disk drives are now much more rugged thanks to the growth in laptop sales. Laptops present a very unforgiving use case to hard disk drives – constant shocks from dropping, frequent power changes, and high-heat operation inside small laptop form factors. The changes in hard disk drive design for laptops have made them much more durable in desktops as well.

The result is a lower storage media cost for ICT implementations in the developing world. Hard disk drives cost much less than solid-state memory, though the costs for both are constantly dropping.

Today, the gossip says that Apple will show off a 10-inch touch screen device with the amazing multi-touch gestures that make the iPhone such a breeze. It will also run iPhone apps as well as some mix of Macbook-sized apps and be priced somewhere around $800 USD.

The Apple Tablet is causing the most excitement in the book publishing world, where there is both fear and greed that the Apple tablet could do for downloading books what the iPod did for music - make it legal, easy, and profitable.

But what does all this Apple Tablet hype mean for Africa and African businesses and consumers? I think we'll see several long-term Apple Tablet impacts:

1. More, cheaper, high-quality books

Right now, its expensive to get a high-quality book in any African country - even South Africa. You can get poorly copied paperbacks anywhere, but the selection is as small as the quality poor. It took me three different books to find all the pages to Dreams from My Father in Nigeria.

With publishers like McGraw-Hill publishing 95% of textbooks in ebook format, and Amazon now selling more ebooks than real books, the Apple Tablet platform may finally make the distribution of knowledge simple, easy and cheap in Africa. Yes, there is still the cost of the device itself, but like cell phones, and even the iPod itself, prices are dropping as African incomes are growing.

2. More, cheaper, mobile broadband Internet

As AT&T has learned, iPhone users are data hogs. I know I push the limits of bandwidth in my usage, burning through a full iPhone battery in four hours or less when I'm liveblogging (thank god for iPhone battery extenders).

Now take the iPhone data usage and multiply it by the Apple Tablet screen size and you can quickly surmise that no matter how robust Safaricom's network, they'll need to invest in new mobile broadband bandwidth soon. Oh and before you think Apple Tablet will not have adoption rates like mobile phones, I have two words for you: Skype video.

All this demand for bandwidth will actually make it cheaper - more people using more bandwidth will stimulate more Internet service providers and greater competition in service, quality, and price.

3. Greater business opportunities for African developers

With what I expect to be robust growth in Apple Tablet sales, African software developers will have many new business opportunities. First, we should see enough demand for application development that Africans should be able to win new work. And soon enough, companies like Leti games will be building Afro-centric applications just for home markets.

But lets think bigger. Wouldn't the ultra portable Apple Tablet also drive a renascence in web development? New applications that utilize the larger screen and camera that I'd expect in a Tablet from Apple? Could this be real remote diagnostics for mHealth? Or produce grading and pricing while on the farm? What about whole new business models we can't even imagine now?

4. But only if the Apple Tablet is unlocked

There is just one concern I have with the Apple Tablet - how locked down it will be. If its like the iPhone, wedded only to certain carriers, or like the Kindle, one content provider, its usefulness across the many countries of Africa will be minimal.

Let's hope that Apple is following Google's lead, and selling the Apple Tablet free from service contracts or vendor lock-in. That users are free to get content from any provider, on any platform - WiFi to GSM 3.5.

Only then will Apple unleash demand like a sledgehammer did in 1984.

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AED has published a short paper on some of the new technologies available for International Development. Its geared towards those that are not familiar with technology and gives a good overview of selected devices and solutions.

Their "Small Technology - Big Impact" report covers:
- PDA's
- Flash drives
- Cell phones
- Wireless Internet
- VoIP
- Radio
- VSAT
- Netbooks
- GPS
- Wikis
- Solar Power

Read More Small Technology - Big Impact (PDF)
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Back before there was One Laptop Per Child and the netbooks it spawned, we had to hunt for information on ICT projects. Finding low-cost devices or the initiatives behind them was a challenge only solved by infoDev's comprehensive Quick Guide to low-cost computing devices for the developing world.

From the beginning, we were proud to have the Inveneo Computing Station listed on the Quick Guide. Yet times have changed since it was first published. Inveneo has new products and other companies now have low-cost computing devices as well. So its time to help infoDev update their Quick Guide.

Using this handy form, submit the low-cost devices that you know about. You can even re-tweet the survey using this handy, short snippet:

Help update @infoDev's Quick Guide to low-cost ICT devices - please RT and add your favorite hardware today! http://bit.ly/ict_device_survey

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Imagine reading a computer screen in bright African daylight that has 3x better resolution that what you're looking at right now. A screen that reflects light, just like paper, with similar high contrast and ease on the eyes. And when in that reflective mode, adds over an hour to your netbook battery life.

This is the promise of Pixel Qi's new dual mode 10-inch netbook display, the 3qi.

Mary Lou Jepsen & 3qi Screen

Based on the OLPC XO-1 dual mode screen, the 3qi can go from full color to black and white reflective mode at the flip of a switch. In that reflective mode, the laptop screen's back light is turned off, which greatly reduces power consumption and in the case of 3qi, greatly increases resolution and therefore readability. Here's a comparison with other screens.

In interview with Mary Lou Jepsen, she revealed that the 3qi screens are going into production in December. This means we should be seeing dual screen laptops for sale in early 2010. But she also said that 3qi screens can be retrofitted into standard 10-inch netbooks that use 40 pin LDDS connectors in about 10 minutes.

While Pixel Qi isn't set up to sell individual screens, she was intrigued by the idea of a distributor selling just the screens, which could herald a flourishing of hardware experimentation. No longer would designers need to worry about sunlight on their screens. They would now welcome direct light on their displays, and the next Maker Faire Africa could have a whole new look.

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