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Eluga smartphone marks mobile phone comeback for Panasonic

Not bad for a first attempt

Eluga smartphone marks mobile phone comeback for Panasonic
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Panasonic Europe today unveiled a brand new mobile phone to mark its attempt to get back into the European mobile phone market.

The forthcoming Eluga smartphone also shows the company didn't simply chuck something together in a few weeks, in order to get back into an industry it left almost seven years ago.

The Eluga is a stylish Android smartphone that has loads of cool features, but the first thing you'll notice is its exterior design, which Panasonic calls 'an ultra-slim D shaped design'. Put simply, it has the shape of a D when looked at from the side.

At just 7.8mm thick, it's definitely slim, but there's more. Besides also being lightweight, at 108g, the phone is also IP57 rated for water and dust proofing. That means it can be left in water of up to a metre in depth for 30 minutes, as well as keeping out particles of 75 micrometres or less for up to eight hours. It isn't, however, shock or impact proof.

Inside the phone is a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory. The operating system comes with Android 2.3 when it first begins to roll out of the factory, but an update to Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) will be available as an over-the-air update from June.

There's a 4.3-inch, OLED, touchscreen with 540x960 pixel resolution and an 8-megapixel rear camera, with HD video capture - but no flash.

Although not really finding many uses thus far, the Eluga is also equipped with NFC (Near-Field Communication) hardware for reading smart tags, of which one is included in the box, allowing you to programme the tag to trigger actions on the phone. It will also potentially offer secure payments in the future in conjunction with services like Google Wallet.

Staying power

What is missing is a front-facing camera, but a more serious concern may come from a rather meagre 1150mAh battery. An 'eco mode' is designed to address the problem, by automatically cutting out non-essential features when the battery begins to run low, but the non-removable battery will be something we'll be keen to test out when we get our review model.

As a first attempt at producing a smartphone, it certainly bodes well for future devices from Panasonic. If you can't wait to see what these will be, the Eluga will be available next month, in a choice of black or silver.

No pricing information was given by Panasonic, but you can expect to pay a premium.

Jonathan Morris
Jonathan Morris
From starting out as a games tester for Mastertronic, Virgin and Sega in the late 1980s, it may seem odd to then ditch everything to write about mobile phones that, at the time, lasted 20 minutes between charges. He always had a hunch mobiles would become quite popular, but possibly didn't realise how powerful (and, ironically, returning to 20 minutes between charges). Jonathan's job is to continue advising on the best hardware to buy, in order to enjoy games that have advanced considerably since those long days and nights testing Double Dragon on the C64.