Panasonic announces the Eluga handset – note: not a whale

[Guest Victor von Zeppelin]

Panasonic haven't released a smartphone in Europe for a fair old while, withdrawing from the worldwide market in 2005. Although the company is very popular in Japan they've never seen fit to launch any of those phones abroad. We recently covered Panasonic's plans to relaunch worldwide and now we're seeing what they have produced!

After announcing their re-entry into the smartphone market only a few months ago, Panasonic have presented the new device...and boy does it look pretty! From what I can gather it seems to have a metal shell, although the use of NFC in a video makes me believe it may just be shiny plastic. The body is said to be water and dust proof while being a tiny 7.8 millimetres thick.

Also included is a 4.3" qHD screen, an 8MP camera and the aforementioned NFC. The device seems to be running Android 2.3 but there’s no word from Panasonic about the availability of Android 4.0.

All in all, it looks like a device that could be in with a chance of competing. Given a decent price tag I think this good looking device could do quite well.

Source: Slashgear

Take a look at the Spanish promo vid after the break.

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[Guest T39andcounting]

No LED camera flash? Seems a bit of a step back.