Panasonic Eluga dL1 review

We ran our continuous playback video test on the Panasonic Eluga, and it scored a fairly mediocre six hours and 19 minutes. That compares poorly with say the HTC One S (nine hours) or the Motorola Defy Mini (almost 12 hours). This is explained by the large screen paired with a smallish 1,150mAh battery – which is sealed inside the slender shell – compared to around 1,600mAh in most recent handsets.

The slender body has limited the size of the battery

The Eluga is powered by a 1GHz Texas Instrument’s OMAP 4430 dual-core processor. We’ve come across this processor a number of times before, and its hardly cutting-edge technology. It performed poorly in the SunSpider Javascript benchmark, scoring a sluggish 4,126ms. We haven’t seen a score this low in ages, and its partly down to the older Android 2.3.5 operating system. Panasonic is promising an update to Andorid 4.0 during the summer.

For the time being, though, you’re stuck with the rather sluggish feel, and outdated feature set of 2.3.5. Panasonic has made few minor changes to it, some icons have been redesigned (not too horribly), there’s a shortcut tray for three apps (plus a link to the app tray) at the bottom of every home screen, and the app tray itself lets you sort by preinstalled, downloaded or updated apps. The default keyboard works well , but the contacts list could do with a better search function. Anyone buying an Eluga will be more than happy to see Android 4.0’s improvements, when they arrive.

Unremarkable hardware and an old version of Android hold back the very-pretty-looking Eluga

One such improvement would be instant access to the digital camera from the lock screen; given our previous misgivings with unlocking this handset, the moment is likely to have passed by the time you hit the shutter button. That’s a shame as the eight-megapixel camera takes decent-looking snaps. It has a burst mode, but this is nowhere near as rapid as those we’ve seen of late, such as on the HTC One X.

This one-to-one pixel crop of a shot from the Eluga’s eight-megapixel camera show re

Panasonic’s first Android handset is a bit of a mixed bag. The styling and build quality are exemplary, but certain design elements such as the buttons are an issue. The battery isn’t as big as we’d like, but then it’s hard to complain when the handset itself is so slender. In the end, its waterproofing proved a bit of a red herring, as it doesn’t haven’t any other tough phone features, but it’s still a nice addition if you’re sold on the appearance of the Eluga, and if you like to browse and text in the bath then this is undoubtedly the phone for you.

It’s a good first effort from Panasonic, but most will prefer the similarly-priced HTC One S – which has a better operating system, longer battery life and superior camera. We are certainly looking forward to seeing more phones from Panasonic though, the next model being the larger Panasonic Eluga Power.