Back in December, the Kogan Agora was revealed and caused all kinds of excitement amongst mobile geeks. Not only was it going to be dirt cheap (around $250 bucks, unsubsidized), and not only was it being pushed out by what was about as close as you can get to a mom-and-pop electronics manufacturer, but it looked like they were going to beat just about everyone besides HTC to getting an Android product on the shelf. Then it got canned.

Cries of vaporware rang through the halls, many believing it never truly existed. It did exist, however, and the proof is now out there; in an experience I would assume was akin to petting a unicorn whilst having a skype chat with bigfoot, Gizmodo Australia got to poke and prod at a real life working prototype – and they liked it!

Ruslan Kogan’s still staying keeping mum on why the Agora won’t see the light of day, but reaffirms that Kogan’s not done with Android yet. To quote Giz:

The final release model will almost certainly ditch the qwerty keypad for a 3.8-inch, iPhone like touchscreen which will take advantage of the cupcake update’s onscreen keypad.

Ugh – that’s too bad. The Agora’s physical QWERTY keyboard was one of the primary reasons we wanted it.