KOGAN AGORA HD MINI 3G

Probably the greatest difficulty the would-be owner of Kogan Agora HD Mini will experience comes immediately: Namely getting past a wholly unique design outside the expected. Fortune favors the bold with this purchase, however, as this Kogan Agora is “Mini” only in name, managing to pack in features expected in a top-line device at a very competitive price.

First, let’s talk about the aesthetics. A bit too big to be confused with a phablet, the Agora Mini at first look resembles a smartphone writ large and inset into a squat backing piece. The result is a tablet display with the screen dimensions of an iPhone with an extra bit on the left-hand side which houses a camera at top but otherwise appears to exist only for the gripping – and distinctive appearance.

As stated above, the features making up the spec list shows the traditional boxes have all been ticked: The Kogan Agora Mini has two cameras, including 8 MP version; Bluetooth, 3G and WiFi connectivity; and a very helpful micro SD card slot for expansion up to 32 GB.

In terms of power and performance, Kogan happily was able to apply the burgeoning trend of quad-core processors in budget tablets. The 1.2 GHz model in this tablet provides speeds surpassing more expensive devices. As for the “HD” bit of the name, well, yes, colors and contrast are certainly admirably sharp – but why did the folks at Kogan decide 1024 x 768 was an appropriate resolution for the technology? A strangely unfortunate swing-and-miss here.

Aside from this minus, however, anyone could be encouraged to wander outside the usual and check out the slightly squat-looking Kogan Agora Mini HD. Odd can be interesting…