Kogan have brought a lot of their own branded phones to the Australian market in recent years and today they have announced another. The new phone, aimed squarely at the entry level end of the market is the Agora 8.
The Kogan Agora 8, currently priced at an amazing $199, is a good looking grey phone with a 5in 1280×720 IPS display protected by 2.5D Dragontrail Glass (think a cheaper, slightly less effective version of Gorilla Glass).
The phone is powered by a quad core Mediatek processor (MT6737) and 2GB of RAM, running on Android 7.0. There is a pitiful 16GB of onboard storage but has a microSD card slot for expanding that storage (up to 128GB). The phone is 144 x 70.9 x 9.45mm and weighs in at 150grams and sports a 2400mAh battery.
The back of the phone houses the 13MP camera above the fingerprint sensor while the front has a 5MP camera. The phone itself is dual SIM BUT keep in mind the second SIM slot can only be used in 2G and most of Australia’s 2G networks have already been switched off with the rest to follow later this year.
Kogan are marketing this phone directly at the low end of the market with Sergiy Bobrovnychyy, Product Manager at Kogan.com saying:
People tend to think that you need to spend a fortune to get a smartphone. The Kogan Agora 8 will make you think differently. 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.
We have also reached out to Kogan for more information regarding software updates, including security and platform, but are yet to hear back. Given their previous record it is unlikely this phone, especially at this price, will ever see any updates, platform or security-wise.
The dual SIM nature of this phone will most likely only be single SIM in Australia by the end of the year (unless a software update adds 3G and 4G support) and it will most likely be stuck on Android 7.0 forever but there are so many phones out there that do not ever see updates. In the end the phone is a sub-$200 device which in itself is very appealing. The device is sleek and decent looking at Kogan say although it is a hard sell when you cannot test a device before buying it. At $199 though if you are looking for a cheap phone for someone this may well be one to look at.
