Earlier at the Mobile World Congress 2012, Barcelona Panasonic unveiled a smartphone called the Panasonic Eluga P-04D. Due to its dust resistant and water resistant capabilities, it was one of the eye catching smartphones unveiled at the event. The device will be releasing soon in Japan and Europe. Let us have a look at the features of the device.
Design and connectivity
Sporting a slim body, this smartphone weighs 103 grams. It is one of the lightest devices in the European Android smartphone market. It has a dimension of 123 x 62.0 x 7.8 mm. It flaunts a 4.3 inch capacitive OLED qHD display with a screen resolution of 960 x 540 pixels and supports 16M colors. The screen comprises 66 percent of the body because of its super slim frame. It comes certified with the international standard IP57 for being dustproof and waterproof and it will protect the device in a desert storm for 8 hours and dip in 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes. It includes NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi tethering, EDGE, GPRS, GPS and Wi-Fi as connectivity options. A memory card slot is also given. It supports VIERA streaming on a Panasonic TV with WiFi Direct and an OLED display.
Camera and Battery
Eluga P-04D comes with 8 megapixels camera with auto-focus capability and digital zoom. It comes packed with a 1,150 mAH standard lithium ion battery that offers a talk time of up to 4 hours and a stand by of up to 5 hours. It would have Mobile wallet support with NTT docomo. It also features Panasonic’s unique power-saving technology called the ‘eco mode’, that provides significant environmental benefit by shutting down non essential features on low battery.
Operating System, Processor and Memory
The device is packed with a dual-core 1 GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor and runs on the Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread operating system. The company however has assured to upgrade it with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system in April 2012. The memory of the gadget includes 1GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal memory. The memory can be extended through a memory card.
Price and availability
The smartphone will hit the Japanese markets from 29th of March 2012 and it will be available in Europe from April 2012. The price of the device has not been revealed officially yet. However, it may be priced around £399 pre-tax ($633). In Japan, it may be available in deep purple color whereas Silver and Black color options may be available for Europe.
General
- Brand: Panasonic
- Manufacturer: Panasonic
- Model ID: P-04D
Operating System: Android (2.3) Gingerbread
Display
- Size:4.3 inches
- Weight: 103 gm
- Dimensions: 123 x 62.0 x 7.8 mm
- Resolution: 960 x 540 pixels
- Screen: capacitive OLED qHD display
Battery
- Capacity: 1150 mAh
- Type: Lithium-ion battery
- Talktime: 4 hours
- Standby: 5 hours
Processor
- CPU: 1 GHz TI OMAP 4430
- System memory: 1GB RAM, 8 GB internal
Camera
- Type: Front facing
- Resolution: 8 MP
- Features: Digital zoom, Autofocus
Video of Panasonic ELUGA (P-04D) from youtube:
I think the Eluga has decent enough specs, but the real appeal is its beautiful design, and the fact that it isn’t all that expensive. The waterproof and dustproof coating will come in handy too. Well, they will if you’re me anyway. A little clumsy. You can pre-order the Eluga from MobiCity for just £350 if you live in the UK. That’s the cheapest I’ve seen it anyway…