Panasonic Eluga Note, An ‘Offline Offering’, Launched At 13,290 INR

Panasonic just launched its Note branded handset, the Eluga Note, which shall retail across 25,000+ retail outlets starting next week, for an affordable price of 13,290 INR.

At the launch, as Pankaj Rana, Business Head – Mobility Division, Panasonic India, proceeded with the piece by piece unveiling, he made it amply clear that the new Eluga Note is meant for offline market. That is exactly where the priorities lie and have always been for Panasonic India, from the very start of their smartphone journey.

Also Read: Xiaomi Mi Max First Impression – Caters To A Specific Audience

The sentiment was distinctly apparent to us when we first held Eluga Note in hands. The dual SIM handset tries hard to check the right boxes but falls short of hyper-competitive standards set by some recent online entrants.

It’s a plastic phone with a familiar textured design back. The rear cover pops open and the battery lying inside is removable as well. On the front, there is a 5.5-inch display with heavily trimmed bezels on all sides. At 142 grams, the Eluga Note is and does feel lighter than phones this size should. The display quality won’t blow your socks off, but yeah, it’s a sharp Full HD panel (LTPS LCD).

The navigation keys are present on the display itself, in line with Google’s Android vision. In fact, Panasonic’s Fit Home UI doesn’t deviate much from stock Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Also read: LeEco Le 2 Review: Punches Above Its Price Tag

Within the settings a few vain add-ons, like two-finger swipe up and two-finger swipe down gestures, have been added, And there is a custom FitHome launcher on top, but essentially it’s the same stock Android ROM in terms of design and features.

Panasonic’s Fit Home launcher allows you to scroll through all your apps using just one hand. This actually makes a lot of sense to us and is a smart way to simultaneously accommodate both – a large display phone and one-hand operation. However, contrary to this very vision, the volume rocker and power-key are placed closer to the top – a tad unreachable when the phone is held in one hand.

To render the software, Panasonic employs a 1.3GHz octa-core MediaTek chipset. When asked why the handset isn’t running something ticking at a faster pace, the company replied which  a very peculiar answer.

“Indian consumers are very sensitive to heating issues. From our past experience, Dead on arrival requests are magnified many folds when we use higher clocked chipsets” the company official said responding to a media query. In the light of heating issue related complaints and queries that we get at Smartprix, this seems kind of plausible.

The chipset is aided by 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. You can also add another 32GB of secondary MicroSD card storage. This should be good enough for basic and moderate users, but yes, a definite verdict on performance and camera quality warrants a full review.

Speaking of which, the Panasonic Eluga Note houses a generous 16MP camera module with triple LED flash. The camera also benefits from a wide F/1.9 aperture lens. Selfies will be handled by a 5MP front-mounted snapper.

Also Read: How Do You Go About Buying A New Smartphone?

The Eluga Note will be available in Champaign gold color. Maybe the color clicks with many offline buyers but since we have been seeing a lot of gold and rose gold around for past several months, the choice feels a little trite to us. More options would have been better. And so would have been a fingerprint sensor.

Panasonic Eluga Note Photo Gallery 

On the whole, the Panasonic Eluga Note feels subservient to offline offerings like LeEco Le 2 and Xiaomi Mi Max, but this one is meant to compete in a completely different arena.

Panasonic Eluga Note Specifications and Features: