The Kogan Agora 7 inch Android tablet has been kicking up something of a storm even before it has actually shipped. Not least because of the pricing. The Australian company is attempting to break into the UK market and is marketing the device as the best value Android tablet in the world to tempt buyers. It can do this, so the company tells us, as it is the manufacturer of the tablet and only sells directly to the customer via an online shop, cutting out additional middleman costs completely.
Thing is, it may just have a point with a selling price currently sitting at £106 ($175 US) which places it at around a third the cost of a Samsung Galaxy Tab. I say ‘currently’ as the price is a bit of a moving target depending upon when you commit to purchase. The Agora 7” is only available online, and Kogan uses something called LivePrice to determine how much you pay. According to Ruslan Kogan, the 27 year-old founder and CEO of Kogan, that price gradually increases “at a rate that depends on a number of key factors until we sell out, reach our expected dispatch date, or reach our everyday best value price”. Commit early and you get a better deal, and one assumes Kogan gets a better idea of how many units to produce. Full refunds are available at any time while a LivePrice is still being offered, apparently.
If that weren’t enough to tempt potential buyers, Kogan has now announced a bunch of specification updates to the Agora which will be available at no additional cost to the selling price, and that includes for those who have already ordered using the LivePrice scheme. So what exactly has been added to the existing basic spec of a 7" WGVA Capacitive Touchscreen, 512MB RAM, Android 2.3 Operating System, WiFi, HDMI video output and 720p HD playback, microUSB, microSD, front facing camera?
Well how does a 1GHz processor with a dedicated 200Mhz graphics processor, a 2.0 MP camera instead of a 1.3 MP one, compatibility with external hard drives and USB sticks up to a max of 1TB and the ability to use 3G USB dongles grab you? No big deal if you were paying three or four times as much for your Android tablet, but at the bargain basement end of the market it’s not to be sniffed at.
Indeed, we are led to believe that the 1GHz system-on-a-chip (SoC) being used for the Agora is based on the same SoC that can be found in the much more expensive Samsung Galaxy Tab, the Hummingbird Cortex-A8.
DaniWeb will bring you a full in-depth review of the Kogan Agora 7” Android tablet just as soon as we get our hands on one. Watch this space…
