The Etisalat Custom Android Gaga Phones for 18k

The folks at Etisalat Nigeria are not sleeping – believe me when I say! Here’s another really good first from Etisalat (all the other companies claiming first in Nigeria, haven’t seen first for a very long time).

Etisalat has quietly rolled out a custom phone that runs on the Google’s ubiquitous mobile operating system: Android. However the version they have chosen to go with is version 2.2 a.k.a Froyo that run in 45.3% of Android handsets globally (with no mention of whether it is upgradable to the latest 2.3 or Gingerbread flavour).

This move is a really nice move from the telco and this might spur others to begin customizing smart phones for the local market. It remains to see if this phone with the specs in the sheet will live up to par.

Here are the features listed for the device. My greatest concern is that there’s no indication of processor speed, nor internal memory or RAM – who posted this sheet? Well, the phone does have the wifi hotspot feature, which means you can turn this device into a little internet signal giver to your laptop, tablet, etc.

• Android 2.2 Smartphone
• 2.8 inch full capacity touch screen
• Accelerometer function
• HSDPA of up to 7.2 Mbps
• Etisalat customized device(Hardware & Software)
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth function, FM radio and GPS functionality
• 3.2 MP camera.
• Document viewer; word, excel, PDF, Adobe flash.

According to Etisalat, “The Etisalat Gaga Andriod Smartphone is affordably priced at N18,999. That is not all, you also enjoy special offers including:

• Free monthly 50MB for 4 months (Free 200MB in total)
• Cheapest call rates of 20kobo/sec with no access fee for first 4 months and for subsequent months on purchase of consistent data plans. (how will they serve people who do not qualify as purchasing “consistent data plan”