Panasonic Eluga Turbo: Good performer but has fewer features compared to competitors

Design: Unlike most of the smartphones from Chinese players such as Xiaomi and LeEco that have metal frames which look inspired from the iPhone, Panasonic has adopted a completely different approach. The Eluga Turbo has Gorilla Glass 3 at the front and Asahi Dragontrail Glass at the rear. It is 6.95 mm thin and feels premium to hold. The weight seems to have been evenly divided as even at 145 gm, it doesn't feel heavy to hold. Instead, it is easy to grip and doesn't slip. Panasonic has added the capacitive touch keys below the display. Power key along with volume control is on the right edge, making it comfortable to use. A SIM card tray has been placed on the left edge, charging port and speaker on the bottom and 3.5 mm jack on the top. Camera module along with flash sits on the top of the left edge of the rear. Panasonic and Eluga branding is loud enough to go unnoticed. The only downside to the design is that at the rear is a fingerprint magnet.

Display: The Eluga Turbo packs in a 5-inch display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. It has Gorilla Glass 3 protection and offers wide viewing angles. The colours appear rich and the text is crisp. The sunlight legibility is pretty decent. The touch response of the display is good. But for Rs 10,999, Chinese players such as LeEco and Xiaomi are offering full HD display with fingerprint sensor.

UI: While the device runs on Android Lollipop operating system, even this one comes loaded with a custom UI. But the one loaded by Panasonic is completely different from what most custom UIs look like. There are multiple pages on the homescreen where you can add widgets and shortcuts. The app launch icon has been replaced with the arrow that opens up a tray that doesn't occupy the full screen. Instead, it only opens up in the bottom half of the screen and you can swipe left and right to access more apps. According to Panasonic, this UI makes it easy to access the app launcher when used with a single hand, without having the need to stretch the hand to the corners. While it looks different in the starting but it grows on you within a few days. There is also an option to change the app many layout from one hand to full screen. Performance: The Eluga Turbo has MediaTek Mt 6753 octa-core processor paired with 3 GB of RAM. It comes with 32 GB of internal storage, of which 25.13 GB is user accessible. Overall the performance of the device is pretty good. Navigating between the home screens and launching apps is quick. There wasn't any lag while browsing the web with multiple tabs or switching between multiple running apps. The overall operation was smooth but the phone did heat up a bit when used for longer durations. It scored 36458 on AnTuTu Benchmark.

Camera: Panasonic has added a 13-MP rear camera with LED flash with multiple settings including face detection, panorama, HDR mode, etc. The camera locked the focus instantly but took a few seconds to capture an image. However, the images captured in bright daylight appeared decent and brightly lit indoors. It does struggle when used to capture images in low lighting environment. The 5-MP front facing camera captures decent selfies.

Battery: The non-removable back hides a 2,350-mAh battery that just managed to last me a day on an average usage. For heavy usage, you should carry the wall charger or battery pack.

Bag it or Junk it: A good performer but falls short in terms of features and performance when compared to the LeEco 1s and Redmi Note 3.

Price: Rs 10,999
Rating: 3.5/5
Plus: Design, UI
Minus: No fingerprint sensor, HD display