Eluga U2: Panasonic’s first smartphone with Android 5.0 Lollipop released

Panasonic, which is housed out of Osaka prefecture in Japan, and promises ‘A better life, A better world’ as its marketing tagline, has not been very aggressive in the already crowded smart phone market. Besides, Panasonic is yet to come out with any differentiating model that could help establish itself as a force to reckon with in the touch screen mobile sector.

That must be an image which Panasonic must be desperately trying to alter, especially when seen in the light of two mobile device announcements planned quite close to each other. While current wisdom dictates a pricing based strategy to wean customers away from the competition, Panasonic first went ahead with the launch of a high-end model, viz., Lumix CM1 Android based smart phone that had a 1 inch camera sensor. The device will be launched at this year’s Consumers Electronics Show in Las Vegas will be available for U.S. retail sale in a couple of months.

The launch of a high-end device flew in the face of sensible pricing based marketing strategy and Panasonic may have now felt the need to rectify its approach by going ahead with the launch and release of an affordable smartphone. Priced at only $254, the Eluga U2 comes with standard features such as a 5 inch 720p (1280×720) IPS display screen. The device is fired with a 2500 mAh battery and supported with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 64 bit processor, which is a first for a Panasonic smart phone. On the storage front, the device comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

It also has a solid 13 MP front camera and a decent 5 MP Selfie shooter. It also comes with an Adreno 306 GPU for graphics. Weighing at a mere 131 grams with measurements of 141.5 x 71 x 7.95mm, Panasonic’s Eluga U2 is also the first device from the Japanese company’s labs, which comes with an Android 5.0 lollipop out of the box version. However, the Lollipop version comes with a Panasonic skin. Worldwide users may have to wait for a little longer as the handset makers have not announced any global release as of yet. The device is, however, unlocked and available for sale in Taiwan.