14 DAY TRIAL // Kogan Agora, the only Australian Android smartphone, has been recently spotted in a series of live images, meant to show us that the device is a real thing, not only some sort of Photoshop rendering, as some voices suggested when the previous official images were released. The phone is a quite affordable handset and, although it may not look too original, it still looks good enough.
The Kogan Agora has been built the same as Samsung BlackJackor, a Motorola Q would-be, and it features a full QWERTY keyboard, 2.5'' QVGA touchscreen display, which comes with a 320x240 pixel resolution and supports 262K colors, as well as GSM and HSDPA connectivity. According to the news, Agora comes in a PRO version as well, which would also feature GPS, WiFi and camera.
The specification list of the device includes Google Mobile Functions such as Google Search, GoogleMaps, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Talk or YouTube. In addition to the wide range of internet applications the smartphone packs we should also mention its 3G capabilities, complemented by its multimedia functionality. The Agora also comes with built-in microphone and speaker, internal memory ROM 256 MB and RAM 128 MB, as well as support for microSD memory cards.
The Lithium-ion battery of the handset has a 1300 mAh capacity and is able to offer up to 400 minutes of talk time and almost 300 hours of standby time. The network standards supported by the device include UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) and GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz).
The Android was previously announced for a Christmas launch for US$143, but it came a little later and with a higher price, namely $193. At the same time, the Pro version should hit the market with a price tag of $260. Kogan is expected to showcase the device at CES 2009, and it also announced that it would start shipping the handset around January 30th.
