Striking deeply into the profit margins of its competitors is Kogan, whose new flagship running Android OS 7.0 is coming in at a pre-order cost of just $199.
Want an Android smartphone with quad-core 1.3GHz processor, 5-inch 1280x720 2.5D ’touch and scratch-resistant’ Dragontail Glass Display, 13MP camera, 4G LTE, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, microSD expandability to an additional 128GB, Android 7.0 Nougat, ‘Touch ID’ fingerprint sensor and more, for just $199?
Well, the clever price-competitive cookies at Kogan have done just that with the new Kogan Agora 8, with the price not including a delivery charge, and actual shipping not due to start until June 9.
Kogan.com product manager, Sergiy Bobrovnychyy, who seemingly wanted to avoid too many Is in his name and went for too many Ys instead, said: “People tend to think that you need to spend a fortune to get a smartphone. The Kogan Agora 8 will make you think differently.”
{loadposition alex08}“The latest addition to the Kogan Agora range is beautiful, sleek and loaded with the most important features, comparable to the high end players in the market – but at a fraction of the cost.
“You’ve never been able to get a phone this good for under $200, until today,” Bobrovbychyy concluded, presumably glad he wasn’t launching the yPhone.
One thing the phone does have is a dual-SIM card slot, but there’s a catch - one of the slots is 3G/4G, while the other is 2G.
This makes the second sim slot effectively useless in Australia, with Telstra and Optus having switched off their respective 2G networks, and Vodafone due to do so this September 2017.
That said, the 2G network is still switched on in many countries around the world, so if you’re a traveller, you still get that additional SIM slot capability should you need it.
In addition, the second SIM slot can also accommodate a microSD card up to 128GB, but you’ll have to make a choice - you can either have two SIMs, or you can have one SIM and one microSD card.
Still, at least you have the option, and in a $199 phone to boot, which is pretty impressive – and we can only hope that a future Kogan Agora 9 smartphone will have two SIM slots both capable of 2G/3G and 4G so Aussies can have one 4G sim and one 3G SIM as some other dual-sim slot phones are now capable of delivering.
Then there’s "Touch ID", which stood out to me beyond the price on the Agora 8’s home page. It’s something you associate with Apple’s iPhone, and it's a naming convention I would have imagined wasn’t available for competitors to use.
I looked online and found that the USPTO had "preliminarily" denied Apple a Touch ID trademark back in 2014, but there doesn’t appear to be any indication that I can find on what happened next.
That said, Apple has its own “Apple Trademark List” page where we see “Touch ID®” complete with the encircled R symbol.
Asking Google what the difference between TM and R gives the following answer: “”TM is used to signify common-law rights in a trademark pursuant to the Lanham Act. Thus, those who have not yet registered their brand name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) should list a ™ instead of a R. The same goes for those applications submitted but not yet accepted.”
Touch ID naming issues aside, and the fact there's no NFC meaning no "Android Pay" or the ability to see how much value your OPAL card has left in it, this $199 phone still looks like tremendous value for money.
Whether it will ever get Android 8.0 is naturally in question, but seeing as its successor will likely be equally inexpensive, the upgrade path to Android 8.0 will presumably simply entail another $199-or-so purchase.
Here are all the specs:
Camera
Auto Focus Yes (Both Rear and Front Cameras)
Flash Yes
Front 5.0MP
Rear 13MP
Connectivity
2G Network (MHz) 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network (MHz) 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
4G Network (MHz) LTE: B1/B3 (1800) / B7(2600) / B5(850) / B8 (900) / B28 (700)
Bluetooth 4.1
GPS Yes
NFC No
SIM Type Micro SIM (Slot 1), Nano SIM or Micro-SD (Slot 2)
USB Micro-USB
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 2.4G
Dimensions
Dimensions 144 x 70.9 x 9.45mm
Weight 150g
Display
Resolution 1280 x 720
Size 5.0"
Type HD IPS
Features
Phone Features Metal body, Fingerprint Sensor, Android 7.0
Functions And Features
Supported Music Formats WAV, MP3, MP2, AAC, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, MIDI, APE, FLAC, WMA, ADPCM
Supported Video Formats MP4, 3GP, MOV, MKV, AVI, FLV, MPEG
Video Decoding 1080p 30fps, H.265/H.264
General
Body Material Metal
Model KAPHN4G8A
Inputs
3.5mm Stereo Audio Yes
Card Slot Micro SD, up to 128GB
Model
Colour Grey
Popular Phone Categories Kogan Agora
Type Kogan Agora 8
Performance
Battery 2400mAh, 4.35V
Chipset MT6737, Quad Core
CPU 1.3GHz (4*CA53)
GPU Mali-720 MP1 650MHz
OS Android
OS Version 7.0
RAM 2GB
Sensors
Compass Yes
Fingerprint Sensor Yes
G-Sensor Yes
Gyro Sensor Yes
Hall Sensor Yes
Motion Detection Yes
Storage
Internal Storage 16GB
