As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald Kogan Technologies, a small Australian discount electronics manufacturer, has announced it will launch a $199 handset by December 15th. Details are a little thin on the ground, but owner Rusian Kogan told the Herald:
…[the] phone would look similar to the iPhone in that it would be a touch-screen device with no built-in keyboard. He said it would include WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and a trackball to aid in navigation.
“We’ve got a few designs that we can easily choose from. We know the components that’s going to go into the phone,” he said.
“It’s a matter of loading the Android system on to the phone, configuring it, making sure it works very well and then the manufacturing of the few thousands phones that we need to launch it is just a matter of a day or two.”
Although it sounds a nice idea – an Android handset pulled together in a few days from on stock hardware – there’s a few too many buzzwords and little enough detail to start popping the champagne corks yet on this one. However, we have our fingers crossed that Android is a platform that allows smaller manufacturers to enter the market and develop products more quickly.
Can it really be that simple?
I would love to have one of these under my artificial Christmas trees this year. So very useful!