Kogan's PR agency just sent us this YouTube Video of the Agora in action, and although the phone looks slightly out of focus and there's some wicked reflections off the screen, it shows off Android working fairly seamlessly. Also worth pointing out is that this, and the photos we saw yesterday, are of a pre-production unit that will be almost exactly the same, except without the silver bezel around the screen (there'll be a black bezel instead to match the rest of the phone). Stay tuned for more Agora news - Mr Kogan himself is at CES and I'm sure the US guys will try and get a hands on this week. And if not, we'll get our hands on a review unit soon enough...

[Kogan Agora on Giz]

Australia's first Android phone, the Kogan Agora, is only a few weeks away from its official release, and they've decided to keep us excited by sending us these spy shots of it in action. While the photos aren't fantastic, we can expect a lot more of better quality in the near future, probably coinciding with CES.

There's three more shots below the fold. All I can say is the end of January can't come quick enough...

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The Gadget: Aussie company Kogan's first attempt at a Blu-ray player.

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We knew it was coming, we just didn't know anything about it. Well now we do: Australia's first Android phone (and one of the first in the world) is called the Kogan Agora. A second handset that will launch at the same time goes by the self-explanatory moniker, Agora Pro. Both handsets are available to order now for $299 and $399 respectively, although they won't ship until January 29 2009 to both Australian and international customers.

Spec-wise, there's a 2.5-inch touchscreen LCD sitting right above a full-qwerty keyboard. It's a tri-band HSDPA handset (running on the 850, 1900 and 2100 bands, so fine for NextG) and quadband GSM phone, measures in at 108 mm x 64 mm x 14.8 mm and weighs 130 grams. Inside there's a 624MHz processor (not sure who from), 256MB ROM and 128MB RAM. There's a MicroSD slot, Bluetooth 2.0 and all the Android apps we've been reading about from the US coverage of the G1.

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I keep looking at this new Blu-ray player from local budget consumer tech company Kogan and wondering to myself, "what's the catch?" And so far, the only thing I can find from the spec sheet is that it only supports BD Profile 1.1 - which is a huge hiccup for me personally, but I think will be forgiveable given the player's $349 pricepoint.

For your cash you get a Full HD Blu-ray player that purports to be region free, meaning you can play discs purchased from the US. That fact alone makes this stand out from the crowd of Blu-ray players on the market this Christmas. But on top of that, there's DVD upscaling to 1080p, HDMI 1.3 connection, optical and coaxial audio out, decoding for both Dolby True-HD, and dts-HD, and it will play back AVI and MPEG files from a DVD as well. It's also compatible with the 24Hz modes on Blu-ray for the true cinema feel.

There's still a slight question mark over the quality of the remote and the user interface, but I've got a review unit landing sometime today, so expect a hands on tomorrow. If you can't wait that long, the Kogan Blu-ray player is available to buy from Kogan's website from tomorrow.

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You know what sucks? Not being able to get an Android phone in Australia. Sure, now that they've worked out a way to unlock it, you could import a G1 to show off, but some of us just refer legitimate channels to get our gadgets. Thankfully, according to the SMH yesterday, local company Kogan is planning on launching an Android handset before Christmas this year for the Australian market.

The phone's design hasn't been finalised yet, but it will be a touchscreen affair and incorporate a trackball for easy navigation, as well as Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It's due to launch December 15 for just $199.

Considering the biggest problem I've found with Kogan products is their user interface, the fact that the handset will be Android based is a masterstroke. Obviously we'll be looking to get our hands on a unit as soon as possible, and we'll keep you posted of any updates.

[SMH]

Wow. We're used to Kogan totally undercutting the price of the big dogs when it comes to TVs, but they've just released a 1080p camcorder for just $399.

Looking at the specs, you get 1080p recoording, an 8GB SDHC card to record onto (upgradeable to 64GB), video editing software, 5x optical zoom, face detection technology, optical image stabilisation and the ability to take still photos (at 5 megapixels using the CMOS sensor). There's a 3-inch LCD screen, composite and USB cabling and weighs just under 300 grams without the battery.

There's a lot more to video cameras than just resolution and megapixels though, and where our concerns lie are in the quality of the lens and the onboard UI - we've seen some pretty horrendous user interfaces in the past with Kogan. But as is the case with all gadgets, we'll reserve judgement until we see it for ourselves.

Still, $400 is a magical price point for any kind of video camera. If you're after a cheap camera to record your upcoming Christmas celebrations (or anything else), you're not going to get much - if any - cheaper than this.

[Kogan]

The Gadget: Kogan's 42-inch Full HD LCD TV, which features a 1080p LG panel, 2 HDMI inputs and a HD tuner built-in.

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The Gadget: Kogan's super-cheap, DVD-playing Pro 22" LCD TV, a 1440 x 900 panel with side loading DVD player, a built-in digital tuner, plus SUB and memory card slots for DiVX, AVI and JPG file playback

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