Kogan has been skirting around Android TV since it launched, offering Google Cast enabled dongles, but has today jumped in with both feet with their new Kogan Smarter TV platform, offering Android TV on two screen sizes.
The Kogan Smarter TV 50” and 58” are available for pre-sale from today, with the 50″ model priced at $599, while the larger 58″ model will sell for $799, though you’ll have to pay delivery on top for both.
The Kogan Smarter TVs include a 4K resolution HDR LED display, which is powered by the Android TV platform and includes a smart microphone-remote that allows access to Google Assistant. The Google Play store is included allowing access to apps and games.
Kogan has also worked with local content providers and offer integration of all the catchup apps including ABC iview, SBS On Demand, 7Plus, 9Now, and tenplay. The TVs also support Chromecast functionality to cast your favourite content to the screen.
Ruslan Kogan, Founder and CEO, Kogan.com said they had been working on the new range for over a year.
This is not a slight improvement. This is a watershed moment for TV technology. Let’s face it. TV remotes have served their purpose over the past few decades, but they were never designed to deal with today’s technology. Now, you can pick up the remote, and say ‘OK Google, play Stranger Things through Netflix on the TV,’ and you’ll be off. The best thing is, I can now relax when I visit my mum’s place and enjoy a meal and a chat rather than trying to teach her how to load apps on TV.
The hardware on-board the Kogan Smarter range is fairly impressive with 2 x USB (1 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0) and 3 x HDMI (2 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x HDMI 1.4) inputs, as well as support for both WiFi and Ethernet network connections. Dual 10w speakers are on-board with support for Dolby audio, though what type of Dolby Audio isn’t mentioned.
If you’d like to check out the new Kogan Smarter range or place a pre-order you can head to the Kogan website – the 50″ is here, and the 58″ is here. Pre-orders will begin shipping on the 24th of May.
Ausdroid, you really need to change your notification system…
“New reply on the discussion section you’ve been interested in
Unsubscribe”
Um, that officially tells me nothing… If I was regularly positing comments on this site, it could be referring to just about anything.
Cannot agree more, doesn’t even point to the conversation.
It has android 7 onboard….. What is Kogan’s update policy and how many years of support to updates are they promising. Also how often are they going to provide updates. Considering it’s been released with nougat it don’t like the chances.
We’ve only ever seen one Kogan branded Android device get an update. That’s something you should definitely bear in mind when purchasing.
Kogan don’t update/upgrade their Android TV televisions – they occasionally update/upgrade their smartphones, but there have been no updates or upgrades to their Android TV televisions thus far.
Some of Kogan’s televisions aren’t too bad – for example, I have one of their “curved” 4K UltraHD televisions and it’s fantastic (especially for the price)… But having bought an Android TV television late last year, I will NEVER buy one again. Not only do a LOT of Google’s own applications not work or not work properly, but support from third-party developers is pretty limited, the entire Android TV operating system feels half-baked and incomplete… I currently get a far better experience by hooking my laptop up to my television, which is why next time I’ll just buy one of… Read more »
Just to add to this, there is a massive emphasis on FOR THE PRICE, because if you compare the panels to something a bit more expensive they don’t stand a chance. We’ve got a Kogan 42 inch last gen Full HD tv last year for very cheap (less than $300) and it is okay for that price but that’s about it… it lacks contrast and cannot show colours properly and no matter how much time you spend calibrating it, it still isn’t right. Now about this TV, at first glance the HDR is not really anything to look forward to… Read more »
I really do find that Kogan is a “hit and miss” manufacturer though… Some of their products compare to mid-range or even high-end products from “mainstream” manufacturers, but then others are absolute garbage. For example, our “curved” 4K UltraHD television and most of the Kogan smartphones I have had have been fantastic, but their tablets were rubbish and one of the other Kogan televisions I have was a complete waste of time! next time around, I think I’ll go back to Sony (which historically, we usually buy) – it costs more, but at least I won’t need to sit here… Read more »
Interested to know what the light bleed and dirty screen effect is like on the Kogan you have, as the one we have is absolutely rubbish in that regard. Makes footy matches look so bad when the camera spans across the field, and I’ve heard this is a common trade with cheap panels even from well known brands (looking at ALL LG IPS panels of late)
I’m not sure what you mean by “light bleed” and “dirty screen effect”… But like I said, our KALED55CUHDUA 55-inch 4K Curved LED TV has relatively good picture quality and seems to be of reasonable build quality (it’s about a year old now, by the way). Our KALED55KU8000SZA 55-inch Smart TV though – which is also 4K UltraHD – is the opposite though… The picture quality is sub-standard (even in comparison to the Kogan television above), the build quality is below-average and the software is full of bugs. If you want a good price, stick to Kogan’s more expensive –… Read more »
To quote another website: Backlight Bleeding: A LCD Problem. The entire surface of a LCD panel is backlit from behind by a light source (CCFL or LED) and the LCD blocks out the light that is not needed when displaying a particular image. … This backlight bleeding issue leaves spots of lighter areas on a dark or black background. And this one from rtings: Gray uniformity describes how well a TV is able to maintain a single, uniform color on the screen. … To evaluate gray uniformity of TVs, we take a photograph of the screen while it is displaying… Read more »
From what I can see online, it’s basically a distortion of the backlight/the backlight not evenly illuminating the screen (i.e. patchy backlighting)… And our KALED55CUHDUA 55-inch 4K Curved LED TV doesn’t have that problem, but our KALED55KU8000SZA 55-inch Smart TV does though, and it is incredibly obvious (especially when the lights are off).
Cool, so bottom line is some models are great some not so much… it ends up being a gamble in the end 🙁
Yep.
Which is why I’m going back to Sony next time… It’ll cost me more (everyone in our house has their own PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 4 Pro with their own television), but at least I’ll know with 100% certainty that I’m getting something pretty good quality, rather than taking a gamble.
One thing I will say for Kogan though, is that their customer service is pretty good these days (it used to be rubbish)… They can be slow to reply, but they’re usually pretty helpful.
Dunno, I love my Sony Android TV. Works well, I have all the TV Catch-up apps, they’re web-based apps not the Android TV versions, but the function is there.
wonder how good the display is…. i have heard mixed reviews of previous Kogan TV screens….. I wish you could go and check them out first somewhere…
Kogan = no way
I agree. Ordered a phone from them for my wife and they sent it to NZ and we got beats headphones. Had to send it back, wait for them to receive it and then they would send the phone. In 2 days. There was no way to ring the wharehouse and say “We messed up, this order goes to the top of the queue”. Useless idiots.
That is what i’m wondering.
It looks very similar to the LG TV’s and i’m hoping that they are using the LG panels – with Android TV on board.
You might just have to wait a few months after the release and read some user reviews.
Based on their own specs:
Panel Innolux
Refresh Rate 120Hz
And judging by the contrast ratio of 5000:1 (if that’s correct and they haven’t bumped it up) it will be a VA panel.
VA Panel?
I responded to you message with a link which I think has been filtered or something, I’ll attempt to reiterate what I said earlier: (from rtings) IPS What it is: LED TV with an In-Plane Switching type panel. Who should buy it: People with a wide living room who might watch the TV while sitting at an angle. VA: What it is: LED TV with a Vertically Aligned type panel. Who should buy it: Those looking for good picture quality in a dark room, and who don’t have a need for wider viewing angles. Bottom line is VA is a… Read more »