Kogan Agora: why the second Android phone comes from Australia
Everybody must have heard the news that most likely the second Android phone will come from down under. Kogan Agora and Kogan Agora Pro, created by Ruslan Kogan’s company, Kogan Technologies, will be the next phone to use Android as its phone’s OS.
Ruslan Kogan, a 25 years old entrepreneur, has been in electronic business for such period of time. For now, his company sells electronic thingy like TV sets, DVD player, and GPS system for Australia and New Zealand territory. But as Kogan can ship Kogan Agora Pro worldwide, I bet he will soon change his company’s core business to phone manufacturer.
So, why the second Android phone comes from Australia, not China, USA, or Korea? We know that big names like Motorola, LG, Asus, or Samsung agree to create Android phone as member of Open Handset Alliance (OHA). But why Kogan comes first?
Let’s take a look again about Android’s policy for implementation. The Mountain-View-based online company stated:
Google has made the Android software open-source, meaning virtually anyone can build phones based around the platform without obtaining permission from Google.
Knowing this, Kogan quickly responds:
It’s a matter of loading the Android system on to the phone, configuring it, making sure it works very well and then the manufacturing of the few thousands phones that we need to launch it is just a matter of a day or two.
Kogan said his secret was a lack of overheads because he ordered his products directly from the factories in China, which built the gadgets exactly to his specifications.
The business is entirely online-based and Kogan has shunned retailers in favour of a direct-to-consumer model, enabling him to offer lower prices than other manufacturers.
The streamlined model has also allowed Kogan to bring products to market more quickly - he claims he was the first in Australia to sell digital photo frames about three years ago.
Kogan said he had 10 employees, including five who worked full-time, and all warehousing was outsourced. He hires university students to provide around-the-clock support from their computers at home.
With this simple workflow, Kogan definitely cuts any middleman and bureaucracy, makes his company becoming the second side to implement Android phone. Oh yeah, Kogan Agora Pro is ready for pre-sale starting now and promise to deliver the product starting Jan 29th.
The phone has two version, Pro and non-Pro. The Pro is tagged at AUD399 (about US$ 250) that completed with GPS, Wi-Fi, and camera. The non-Pro version cost you AUD299 (US$ 200) with the lack of those mention above. Anyway, here is the full specs of the phone:
- Display: 2.5-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 262K QVGA (320 X 240 pixel) resolution
- QWERTY keyboard
- GPS navigation capability (included with Kogan Agora Pro)
- Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate
- Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11b/g (included with Kogan Agora Pro)
- 2.0 megapixel camera (included with Kogan Agora Pro)
- Audio
- Built-in microphone and speaker
- Headphone jack
- Ring tone formats: MIDI, MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, PCM
- Video formats supported: MPEG2 H263, H264, MPEG4, AVI
- Dimensions (HxWxD): 108 mm x 64 mm x 14.8 mm
- Weight: 130g
- 1300 mAh Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
- Talk Time: Up to approximately 400 minutes
- Standby Time: Up to approximately 300 hours
- 624 MHz CPU
- Memory: 256 MB ROM / 128 MB RAM
- microSD card expansion slot
- Network: UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) / GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
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