MTN has already released a very low-cost Android smartphone in the form of the MTN Steppa but the company in yellow may have to bow out of the race a little early in the face of Vodacom’s new (and very cheap) smartphone. Vodacom has announced the launch of the Vodafone Smart 4 Mini, a 4-inch WVGA device that will run buyers R900 if they buy the smartphone outright.

Alternatively, buyers will be able to pick up the smartphone from Vodacom for a base 24 month, R60pm contract that will see them getting R50 airtime every month. But what could a R900 smartphone actually consist of?

Well, the Vodafone Smart 4 Mini is packing a 1.3GHz dual-core CPU and 512MB of system memory as well as 4GB of internal storage to start with. Those are the specs we’d expect from a device at this price point but users will have 3G data access and a 3.2MP camera to play with.

That all sounds well and good but the biggest attraction of Vodacom’s newest device is going to be Android 4.2.2 on a smartphone that costs less than a grand. Stuff has yet to get their hands on it so we’re sceptical about how the operating system performs with this set of hardware but Jelly Bean at this price should go over quite well.