My review: £100 Kogan Agora tablet

I recently saw this 7" Android tablet via the hukd forums, which seemed to be a bargain at the (then) £100 plus delivery price, now £125 plus delivery, and thinking about my young son wanting to use flash-based web games (cbeebies website etc), thought this was worth a punt. After all, £100 tablet that does 'ok' might be better value than a traditional £400 tablet that works really well.

The short review: You get you pay for :)

Other views:
Short video of it in action (Android Tablet)

A review on a blog site (r-views).

The long review: It arrived yesterday, delivered to my work address, and got home in the evening and began to play. At the time of writing i've had a couple of hours of experience, so of course things may develop.

Specs:
7 inches, capacitive multi-touch glass display
800 x 480 resolution
512MB DDR2 RAM
4 GB internal storage
Android 2.3.3 operating system
720p HD video playback
1Ghz Cortex A8 CPU + 200Mhz GPU
Wi-Fi b/g
Micro SD card slot
USB 2.0 port (mini, with a converter cable)
HDMI Port (mini, plus a converter cable)
Weight: 390g

Packaging - fine, but basic. A small shoe-box type cardboard box, the tablet was suitably protected, but most of the box was empty space, although probably couldnt be much smaller due to the standard sized plug charger within.

Feel & construction: Surprisingly good. It has a weight to it that remains handy to hold in one hand, but doesnt feel flimsy. No creaking evident yet. The main silver 'back' button is however quite noisy to press, with a relatively loud click (an odd complaint, admittedly, but using the tablet in bed at night would need to be silent with the wife next to me trying to sleep!).

First impressions in use: Quite limited so far. The 'browser' (no name, not sure really what it is) is functional. The android marketplace does allow installations of others, however both 'Firefoxes' (no numbers, but regular and 'beta' are there, which i assume to be 4 and 5 respectively) can be installed, however dont launch. Annoying. DolphinHD can be installed and launches, but crashes almost constantly. Opera installs and works the best, although without flash.

In a way, the lack of flash in Opera is quickly becoming a blessing though, as flash (10.3) in 'browser' is a slow and crash-inducing experience, which this morning was quite upsetting to my son trying to play 'waybuloo' on cbeebies - scrolling up and down menus is neither as fluid nor as responsive as an iOS experince on my iphone (3gs running latest iOS 4), however it is good under Opera.
When flash does work, due to the lack of responsiveness, my son presses an icon, nothing happens, then he either presses it again or another icon at which point the first press registers and begins to work... etc etc you get the point.

I will update this review as time goes on, but my overwhelming view at this time is that i cant imagine Apple allowing something like this out of their door - perhaps there is something good in 1 company controlling the hardware, software, and the whole experience ?

thanks for the review

I was considering the kogan for exactly the same purpose as my 4 year old son dropped my my asus transformer on the floor the other night!

I was wondering whether you still use the device or whether it has been a waste of money?

cbeebies flash games are the major thing for him as well, and it seems to be asking too much at the moment for budget devices to handle them well

Its a pity as I had high hopes about the kogans capacitive screen - which seems pretty good on the video in the above link - but its the software and cpu that seem to be causing the slow down.

what I need is a 7 or 8 inch device, with a responsive screen (ie capacative) and a decent cpu\gpu configuration - a smooth experience is really important for children, who have no patience.

I would be prepared to up to £150 for such a device, otherwise I might as well stump up another ton and get a branded one.

Current front runner is the hannspree hannspad, even though it is 10 inch.

Overall i'd have to recommend avoiding the Kogan - it does some things well, but for kids without patience it becomes an exercise in frustration.
As a media playing device, it is acceptable - videos (certainly Standard Def / DVD), music and book reading is all good enough...
It's just the web browsing experience which is a shame.

I should also mention that as I type, the device is back in its box with a ticket logged on the Kogan support webite - the top 1cm of the screen has stopped responding and all resets etc havent resolved it - back for repair. I suspect once I have it working it'll go on ebay.

thanks, you have confirmed my suspicions :¬)