Kogan’s sub-$300 4G smartphone given the plus treatment with new model

Earlier this year, Kogan and BenQ partnered for a 4G phone that hit under the $300 mark and provided good value, but it’s not done, with an improved edition on the way.

If you’ve been considering Kogan’s Agora 4G because it brings high speeds and a 5 inch HD screen to the sub-$300 price bracket, you now have a reason to consider its brother, which will be here shortly.

Announced this week, Kogan will be adding to the range with a bit of a plus. That is, the Aussie e-tailer will be introducing the 4G+, a slight revamp to the Agora 4G with practically identical specs, but some more memory, storage, and a better camera.

The new model comes in white and black — one more colour over the original Agora 4G which came only in black — and will include 2GB RAM instead of the 1GB of the original, 16GB of storage instead of the 8GB of the original, and a better rear camera rated at 13 megapixels instead of the 8 megapixels found on the Agora 4G we saw earlier on.

But outside of these changes, the Agora 4G+ is practically the same as its Agora 4G brother, with the same quad-core 1.2GHz processor, same 2520mAh battery, same version of Android with 4.4 “KitKat,” same upgradeable memory via microSD, and same 5 inch HD screen.

In fact, we mostly expect the performance to be spot on, though the extra boost of memory could speed things up enough to make this version even better to use.

That said, the improvements aren’t likely to fix the screen angles, unless Kogan and BenQ have done a switcheroo without telling anyone, and we doubt that to be the case.

At least the price is low enough, with Kogan slotting the newer Agora 4G+ in at $10 higher than the first one at $239, while dropping that original Agora 4G (with 8GB storage and an 8 megapixel camera) to $209.

You’ll find the phones on Kogan’s site shortly, where they join another announcement from the Aussie e-tailer from earlier in the week in the form of a budget Windows laptop.