Panasonic has launched the Eluga A smartphone in India for the price tag of INR 9,490. Last week, company launched its mid-higher range device called Eluga U in India. The Panasonic Eluga A is set to go on sale from August 15, which will compete with other devices in the sub-INR 10,000 category in Indian market.
The Eluga A specs sheet includes a 5-inch FWVGA (854 x 480 pixels resolution) IPS display and is powered by a 1.2 GHz Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor. The device runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean out of the box, which might not be upgradeable to Android 4.4 Kitkat.
On the storage front, the device comes with a 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage, which seemed decent for the category, although it lacks in the expansion slot support. In the camera department, the device sports an 8MP Autofocus rear-camera and a 1.3MP front-facing camera to take selfies and video calls. All this is powered by a 2000 mAh battery, which surprisingly features a Quick Charge option that allows battery to charge 40% faster than usual. The interesting thing to note is that the Quick Charge technology supports existing 5V USB charging standard (BC1.2), which in order allows it to work with the existing charging accessories.
Panasonic Eluga A is based on Qualcomm’s design reference and comes with small tweaks like user friendly one-hand usage, Audio+, Video+ and the BatteryGuru app learns the usage of smartphone and optimizes accordingly to extend battery life. The Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Audio+ sound enhancement technology puts 3D surround sounds to a good use and Voice+ feature allows clearer conversations, according to the company.
The device also comes pre-installed with several Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi. Where this device lacks in the hardware department, it makes up in the design and little tweaks that proves useful.
On the comparison note, this device is not in par with most of the sub-INR 10,000 devices like Moto G and Asus Zenfone 5 as both of these devices comes with better screen resolution and runs on Android 4.4 Kitkat out of the box. With devices like Xiaomi Mi 3 priced at INR 13,999 and Asus Zenfone (A501CG) priced at INR 10,000, and Moto G dropping its price to INR 10,490 the competition in this category is already heated up a lot.
