The ELUGA was announced about a week ago by Panasonic. It has a new big brother too, the ELUGA Power. We’ll have snaps of that in a moment.
Like Fujitsu, Panasonc have decided to ensure that phones are waterproof. It’s an interesting to note that networks can prefer waterproof phones because they’re usually replaced less and insurers charge less too. It’s a slim, lightweight and well-built device and I found it difficult to find fault with. It has, so Panasonic tell me, the largest screen ratio on the market – i.e. more of this phone is screen than anything else. The display is a 4.3″ 960×540 pixel OLED QHD unit.
It’s just 7.8mm thin and has a dual-core 1GHz CPU, 8 megapixel rear camera, NFC, WiFi, GPS and here it’s running Android 2.3.x but it’ll be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) in the summer. It should be available “from June” too.
Panasonic are making sure that their phones work alongside their TV’s too – a VieraTemore app can be used to “throw” content at the TV through DLNA.
Other specs include 8GB storage, Bluetooth 2.1, 3.5mm audio jack, all the usual sensors and a 1150mAh battery. We couldn’t find any mention of a microSD card slot though.
I hope they get john fashanu to do the advertising campaign for this. ELUGA!