Panasonic is not exactly a popular company when it comes to making smartphones, but does have a huge name in electronics. So even if its smartphones line falls under the umbrella brand strategy, the Japanese company has managed to put on the market decent devices.

Eluga for Panasonic is like Xperia for Sony, so it’s a pretty important line of products for the company. Now they have announced the new Panasonic Eluga that has been made available for the Indian market through online retailer Flipkart.

The smartphone is aggressively priced, as there are sellers that offer it for a price of just 9490 rupees, which translates into $153. There are already plenty of handsets on the Indian market in this price range, so consumers have enough models to choose from, that’s for sure.

The handset sports a 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS display powered by a 1.3 GHz Quad-Core processor. There’s 1GB RAM powering the device, 8GB internal memory and the memory is expandable up to 32GB with microSD. It runs Android 4.4.2 (KitKat), and it’s note sure when will it get Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The device is Dual SIM and features a 8MP rear camera with LED Flash, 1080p video recording along with a 2MP front-facing one. It is 9 mm thin and weighs 155 grams. Connectivity options include 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and there’s a 2000mAh battery providing the juice.

Panasonic’s newest Eluga smartphone comes with a Smart Swipe feature that lets you use a combination of number of fingers to swipe in a direction to perform various functions such as take a screenshot, open messages and more. The Panasonic Eluga I comes in Silver and White colors and brings a free Flip cover, as well.

Manish Sharma, Managing Director and Pankaj Rana, Business Head at Mobility Division, Panasonic India said the following:

With the launch of Eluga I, Panasonic India is offering a new dimension to the company’s unique Eluga series culture; wherein the model has been introduced to reinforce our category strength with one of the most innovative phones in the Eluga series while meeting the needs and requirements of the customers.

We are living in a 2.0 world today, where consumers’ requirements are moving and so is their demand for technology. Customers today prefer relevant innovation, so we focus on creating categories of products for various segment of people, rather than focusing on a specific genre. We will continue to launch more and more devices and continue to innovate for our customers.

The device seems to be well-built, but it will have to compete against such devices as the Asus ZenFone 5 line, which is in the same price range. Have you ever bought a smartphone from Panasonic? And if so, what have been your experiences so far?

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