Panasonic Plan Return to the European Phone Market After a Six Year Hiatus

Panasonic have announced today that they are re-entering the European Smartphone Market. They were last seen in 2005 with the X800 and X700, the latter of which I owned personally.

Very few details have been given at present, there are several non-descript photos of the Global Model Prototype.

More details are available after the break.

Panasonic have also advised the model will have the following characteristics:

An ultra-slim D-shaped design for easy portability
Slim bezel with high viewing quality Quarter HD 960x540 (QHD) 4.3-inch large organic light emitting diode (OLED) screen
Waterproof and dustproof for ease of handling

There is also mention of the possibility of NFC being offered in future models. Panasonic are aiming to sell 1.5 million devices in the next financial year, which is fairly bold for a vendor who hasn't sold a phone in Europe for so long.

I will be checking the FCC and Bluetooth SIG for further information, Panasonic have given a release date of March 2012 and confirmed an agreement with a large European operator.

Source: Panasonic

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Its good that they are going to release stuff in Europe again. I think they should just release with exactly the same features they have in Japan though (European Language support only change). Its a problem that the rest of the world seems to get only dumbed down Japanese stuff. (Most of the still working > 5 yr old electronics I own are Panasonic or Technics.

(I still want stuff like IRDA (TV remote software or connect to old Thinkpad which doesn't have native Bluetooth - (The Japanese Xperia Play has this).

If you compare the OSF2 to the Softbank 009Z its likely identical other than the msm7227T replaced with msm7227a (The armv7 one).

Japan always had the best stuff like the Zaurus the best Vaio's etc etc.

Sharp's phones look pretty decent as well.

I hope they succeed (At least if its not the expense of what makes their stuff good in the first place.)