Got your heart set on one of Kogan's Android phones? Too bad.
Less than two weeks before the first shipments of the Kogan Agora phone were due to begin, Kogan has announced that the heavily anticipated phone has been, to use their words, "
delayed indefinitely".
The problem? In a nutshell (or at least from what Kogan's stating) it seems as though the Agora's screen resolution might not have been up to scratch when it came to Android applications. The Agora and Agora Pro were both proposed with simple 320 X 240 pixel QVGA screens, and in a posting on the Kogan Web site Blog, company owner Ruslan Kogan states that
"It now seems certain the Agora in it's current form will limit its compatibility and interoperability in the near future. One of the potential issues is the screen size and resolution. It seems developers will be creating applications that are a higher resolution than the Agora is currently capable of handling."If the screen resolution is the only problem the Agora faced -- and given the comment that resolution was only
"one of the potential issues", it's not at all clear -- then it's likely to be an expensive problem for Kogan, as the statement also comments that
"The Agora did reach a very late stage of development. Manufacturing had commenced and it was a matter of days from being shipped to you." It's also an interesting position for the company to take against other products it's recently shipped. The
Kogan Blu-Ray Player, for example, inhabits a similar technological dead end that the Agora nearly slipped into, as it's a Blu-Ray 1.1 player with no network port -- which means firmware updates have to be on burnt CD only, and there's no way to get Blu-Ray Profile 2.0 support, or BD-Live content from any disc put into it.
Given Kogan's mantra of selling off technology cheaper, we can't help but wonder if original Agora models actually built might not end up being sold off, fire-sale style in the near future. If you've already put down a deposit on an Agora, the statement notes that
"All customers who pre-ordered the Agora will receive a full refund. All refunds will be processed within 7 days." At the time of writing, it was still possible to order an Agora through Kogan's web site, but we'd suggest that was a very silly thing to do.
You can read the
full statement here. APC's exclusive interview with Ruslan Kogan, just four days ago,
can be read here. Oddly, he didn't mention the indefinite delay then.