Remember when Kogan was going to launch the Agora phone, and then didn’t? It’s still dead. But, as Demarket notes, he’s extended his brand name grey market imports business to include smartphones, including the iPhone 4, Galaxy S II and HTC EVO 3D.
As always, Kogan’s selling on price, and at first glance the prices seem very good; an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S II for $519 is decent. If Elly’s review took your fancy, he’s also selling off the HTC EVO 3D for $559 unlocked.
There’s a couple of potential snags here to be wary of. Firstly there’s the obvious matter of warranty support, and secondly, there’s the issue of carefully checking which model you’re actually getting; with Telstra and Vodafone using 850Mhz but Optus only 900Mhz, it’d suck to get a shiny new smartphone and then discover you couldn’t get anything but GSM data through it. Kogan’s pages are a little sparse when it comes to stating which bands the phones work on.
Update: A Kogan representative got back to me on both questions with the following response:
At minimum, there is a 12 month Australian warranty for all products. Different products have different warranty arrangements. For instance, the Apple products have a world wide warranty – you can simply take them into your nearest Apple Store. For some other products, you just contact Kogan if there is a fault and they will replace it with a brand new unit. In the event of a fault, Kogan will never ask a customer to send their product anywhere but our local branch. We can’t afford an upset customer, and wouldn’t have been able to grow the Kogan community to over a quarter of a million customers without looking after customers and their products in the prompt and helpful manner we do. Also, the bands are being added shortly.”