Panasonic stakes smartphone recovery on Eluga line

Panasonic’s Eluga Android phone has a big screen screen and reasonably slim design.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

BARCELONA, Spain–We now know the two Android phones on which Panasonic is pinning its hopes for a successful re-entry into the world market for mobile phones.

The good news: they’re both sleek, waterproof designs with buttons tucked into the back. The bad news: they’re named “Eluga.”

Maybe the name test-marketed better in Europe and Japan, where the phones will arrive first, but to me it sounds like a big, homely fish. In any event, they’ll be carrying the weight of Panasonic’s attempt to reach beyond the Japanese mobile phone market into which the company had retrenched and to take on better-established Android players.

The first phone, the ordinary Eluga with a 4.3-inch screen, 1GHz dual-core Texas Instruments processor, and Android 2.3.5, emerged last week. The second, the Eluga Power, has an even bigger 5.0-inch screen, a faster 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, and the newer Android 4.0, and it debuted this week at the Mobile World Congress show here in Barcelona, Spain.

… [Read more]

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Hat Tip To: Crave: gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff. – CNET