Thursday, November 12, 2015
Panasonic Eluga Icon Review: Another Low-Cost 4G Option
4G-compatible phones in rather quick succession. The latest launch is the Panasonic Eluga
con which supports 4G and features a sizeable battery, which is always welcome.
At Rs. 12,399 on Amazon, this phone aims to compete with the Lenovo K3 Note,Redmi
Note 4G and even the Motorola Moto G (Gen 3). Panasonic boasts of heavy software
optimisations and a long battery life in the Eluga Icon. How this actually translates in the real
world is what we're about to find out.
Look and Feel
The Panasonic Eluga Icon measures 7.95mm in depth and weighs around 147g, which are
both respectable. The slate-coloured phone (also available in gold) looks good without being
flashy thanks to the matte finish. This also helps it be a bit resistant to scratches or minor
dings from everyday use. The phone does get a bit slippery, however, and there isn't much in
terms of grip on the sides either.
The fit and finish of the chassis is quite excellent. Edges are smooth and beveled at places
making the phone comfortable to hold. The power button and volume rocker are placed mid-
way on the right so it's easier to reach when you hold it. The Eluga Icon is a dual-SIM phone
which accepts Micro-SIMs through slots placed on either sides of the unit. Rather than
needing a pin to eject them, there are flaps which can be popped open by simply pressing
down on a nub. Around the back, we have the 13-megapixel camera module along with the
single-LED flash. The camera module bulges a bit which can cause unwanted scratches over
time. There's a mono speaker grille down at the bottom. The headphone socket and Micro
-USB port take their usual spots at the top and bottom respectively.
The Eluga Icon features capacitive buttons on the front which unfortunately, aren't backlit.
They are responsive enough but you'll have to guess your way in the dark. The display is a
5.5-inch OGS HD IPS panel. Even though the pixel density tops out at 267ppi, it's never really
an issue. The display is vibrant with good brightness levels and good colour reproduction.
The auto brightness function isn't the most intelligent though as the display is always a bit
dimmer than it should be with it on. We also found legibility under direct sunlight to be quite
poor as the display gets washed out quite badly.
Panasonic bundles the phone with a charger, data cable, headset and screen protector.
We didn't get the headset with our review unit but the charger and cable were decently built.
Specifications and Software
The Eluga Icon features capacitive buttons on the front which unfortunately, aren't backlit.
They are responsive enough but you'll have to guess your way in the dark. The display is a
5.5-inch OGS HD IPS panel. Even though the pixel density tops out at 267ppi, it's never really
an issue. The display is vibrant with good brightness levels and good colour reproduction.
The auto brightness function isn't the most intelligent though as the display is always a bit
dimmer than it should be with it on. We also found legibility under direct sunlight to be quite
poor as the display gets washed out quite badly.
Panasonic bundles the phone with a charger, data cable, headset and screen protector.
We didn't get the headset with our review unit but the charger and cable were decently built.
Specifications and Software
The Eluga Icon is powered by a 64-bit MediaTek MT6752 SoC with eight ARM Cortex-A53
cores. We have the Mali-T760 on the GPU front, as well as 2GB of system RAM. Other
specifications include 16GB of storage that's expandable by 32GB, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0,
FM Radio, and USB OTG. The MediaTek SoC also has an embedded 4G LTE modem which
supports band 40 for India. The 3500mAh battery is one of the highlights of the phone, for a
rated 19hrs of talk time.
The software is where things get a bit disappointing. For starters, you get Android KitKat 4.4.4
out-of-the-box and there's no mention on Panasonic's website about a future upgrade to
Lollipop. Panasonic has also heavily skinned KitKat with their ICON UI. This is a bit
unnecessary, to be honest, and not the most user-friendly. Thankfully, apps do come pre-
organised in folders so it's not too difficult finding them. Apart from the usual suspects,
Panasonic also bundles some apps that you might actually use, including a file manager,
Truecaller, Saavn, Clean Master, Paytm, WPS Office and amazon,
The lockscreen has shortcuts to the dialler, messaging app and camera. You also put a host
of customisable toggle switches in the notification shade. The settings app reveals more
cusomisations to the OS. First up is HotKnot, which is MediaTek's answer to NFC transfer. Of
course this only works if the other phone supports HotKnot as well. Gesture Play lets you
open apps by tracing letters on the screen, even when it's off. Smart iSense is a gesture-
based implementation which does things such as automatically answering a call when you
lift the phone to your ear, or sifting through your images when you swipe your hand over the
screen - essentially everything you've seen in Samsung's offerings in the past.
Performance
The interface is quick with no discernible lag creeping in. The screen is responsive but there
are times when it intermittently fails to register touches, which we noticed happened while
trying to capture a shot.
Coming to some performance numbers, we got 39,879 points in AnTuTu and 17,792 in
Quadrant, which are both good. Graphics performance was pretty good as well for a mid-
range phone, as 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme gave us 5,842 points while GFXBench gave us
22fps. Overall, the Icon packs in enough horsepower for most 3D games and apps.
The video and audio player plays most popular formats well enough. Since the display is very
reflective, watching videos in the daytime can be a challenge. Even with Full HD videos and
games, the phone only got a bit warm but never uncomfortably hot. High-bitrate videos and
taxing games such as Angry Birds 2 and Rayman Jungle Run played without a hitch. The
volume from the speaker is also quite good for a mono speaker.
We have an 8-megapixel snapper up front and a 13-megapixel module around the back. The
latter manages to capture pictures that look decent when viewed on the phone, but zooming
in reveals another story. Landscape shots lack detail and sharpness, while colours seem
noticeably oversaturated in macros. Night shots aren't too great either as there's a lot of
noise which creeps into the scene. The camera is simply unable to focus on a subject very
well in the dark, even with the flash.
You get a few scene modes like Face Beauty, PIP (which uses the front camera as well),HDR
, Filters and Fix Me. The latter lets you adjust the contrast, brightness and ISO settings
manually, however, the implementation could have been a lot simpler and the sliders don't
change orientation to landscape mode, which is inconvenient.
Specifications
cores. We have the Mali-T760 on the GPU front, as well as 2GB of system RAM. Other
specifications include 16GB of storage that's expandable by 32GB, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0,
FM Radio, and USB OTG. The MediaTek SoC also has an embedded 4G LTE modem which
supports band 40 for India. The 3500mAh battery is one of the highlights of the phone, for a
rated 19hrs of talk time.
The software is where things get a bit disappointing. For starters, you get Android KitKat 4.4.4
out-of-the-box and there's no mention on Panasonic's website about a future upgrade to
Lollipop. Panasonic has also heavily skinned KitKat with their ICON UI. This is a bit
unnecessary, to be honest, and not the most user-friendly. Thankfully, apps do come pre-
organised in folders so it's not too difficult finding them. Apart from the usual suspects,
Panasonic also bundles some apps that you might actually use, including a file manager,
Truecaller, Saavn, Clean Master, Paytm, WPS Office and amazon,
The lockscreen has shortcuts to the dialler, messaging app and camera. You also put a host
of customisable toggle switches in the notification shade. The settings app reveals more
cusomisations to the OS. First up is HotKnot, which is MediaTek's answer to NFC transfer. Of
course this only works if the other phone supports HotKnot as well. Gesture Play lets you
open apps by tracing letters on the screen, even when it's off. Smart iSense is a gesture-
based implementation which does things such as automatically answering a call when you
lift the phone to your ear, or sifting through your images when you swipe your hand over the
screen - essentially everything you've seen in Samsung's offerings in the past.
Performance
The interface is quick with no discernible lag creeping in. The screen is responsive but there
are times when it intermittently fails to register touches, which we noticed happened while
trying to capture a shot.
Coming to some performance numbers, we got 39,879 points in AnTuTu and 17,792 in
Quadrant, which are both good. Graphics performance was pretty good as well for a mid-
range phone, as 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme gave us 5,842 points while GFXBench gave us
22fps. Overall, the Icon packs in enough horsepower for most 3D games and apps.
The video and audio player plays most popular formats well enough. Since the display is very
reflective, watching videos in the daytime can be a challenge. Even with Full HD videos and
games, the phone only got a bit warm but never uncomfortably hot. High-bitrate videos and
taxing games such as Angry Birds 2 and Rayman Jungle Run played without a hitch. The
volume from the speaker is also quite good for a mono speaker.
We have an 8-megapixel snapper up front and a 13-megapixel module around the back. The
latter manages to capture pictures that look decent when viewed on the phone, but zooming
in reveals another story. Landscape shots lack detail and sharpness, while colours seem
noticeably oversaturated in macros. Night shots aren't too great either as there's a lot of
noise which creeps into the scene. The camera is simply unable to focus on a subject very
well in the dark, even with the flash.
You get a few scene modes like Face Beauty, PIP (which uses the front camera as well),HDR
, Filters and Fix Me. The latter lets you adjust the contrast, brightness and ISO settings
manually, however, the implementation could have been a lot simpler and the sliders don't
change orientation to landscape mode, which is inconvenient.
Specifications
- 5.5-inch HD (1280x720) OGS display
- 7.95mm thickness
- 147 grams
- 13MP rear camera, 8MP front camera
- 16GB storage (expandable)
- 2GB RAM
- 1.5 GHz octa core Mediatek MT6752 processor
- Android 4.4 KitKat
- 3,500 mAh battery
- 4G LTE with dual SIM connectivity
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