Panasonic Eluga Arc Review
This year itself, Panasonic launched its Eluga Arc handset for Rs 12,490. Although its specifications are of an entry-level smartphone, but the company has tried to give something new to the users in terms of security by providing a fingerprint sensor. It looks good too. Let us tell you about it in detail through the review of Panasonic Eluga Arc.
Look and Design
The most important feature of Eluga Arc is its design which we liked. The front glass is slightly curved at the edges. This gives the phone a stylish look to a great extent. The phone doesn’t have a metal build, but its plastic unibody gave us the feel of metal. To put it plainly, this is a great looking smartphone from every angle.
Its size also goes in the phone’s favor. The screen of Eluga Arc is 4.7 inches. Because of this the phone is easy to hold and grip in the hands. The power and volume buttons are on the top right side. Micro-USB port is present in the lower part. The SIM tray is on the left. And IR emitter and 3.5 mm socket on the top.
There is a speaker present in the back of the phone. Apart from this, camera, flash and fingerprint sensor have also been given place on the rear part. The phone is always active when it is switched on. As a result you can unlock the phone directly from standby mode. The fingerprint sensor can store five fingerprints at a time. It is very easy to use it. It was extremely accurate and worked almost every time, but it’s not very fast. You will realize that it takes some time to place your fingers on the fingerprint sensor and unlock the phone.
The screen of Panasonic Eluga Arc is an IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 720×1280 pixels. It is neither very bright nor very sharp. The color tone is a bit strange. If you are going to use your phone for gaming and videos then Eluga Arc is not the best option for you.
Specifications and Software
Although its price is around Rs 11,000, you will generally find the specifications of Panasonic Eluga Arc in even cheaper phones. It uses a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset, which is two years old. But it is known for low battery consumption. It also has 2 GB RAM. The inbuilt storage is 16 GB (microSD card support up to 32 GB) and it is equipped with a 1800 mAh battery.
The primary SIM slot of this dual SIM phone supports 4G. It has Wi-Fi B/G/N, Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG and FM radio connectivity features. You will also get a 5 watt charger in the box of the handset. This is not a capable charger by any means.
The phone runs on Android 5.1 on which custom interface has been used. You will have the standard Lollipop launcher and Fit Home to use. We liked Lollipop Launcher because we are used to using it. That doesn’t mean Panasonic’s own Fit Home interface is bad. The company has kept it very simple. The settings are very basic, meaning you won’t be able to get a lot of control over your phone.
Panasonic Eluga Arc uses SwiftKey or Android keyboard. Apart from this, WPS Office is available to read and edit the document. There are many useless apps on the phone, the good thing is that you will be able to remove most of them. Only 11 GB internal storage will be available for use. In such a situation you will need a microSD card. It should be known that the phone comes with a hybrid SIM slot, that is, after increasing the storage, you will not be able to use another SIM card.
camera
Panasonic Eluga Arc has an 8 megapixel primary and 5 megapixel front camera. With both cameras, users will be able to record videos of 1080 pixel resolution. You get flash with the rear camera. Let us tell you that panorama and slow-motion video modes are not provided in the default camera app of the phone. You will be able to use it for regular photos and videos. There is a Pro mode which gives you more control over the photos. We tried using third-party camera apps, but the phone app either doesn’t allow access to the camera, or it crashes repeatedly.
The camera takes average quality photos in daylight. Colors are dull and details are also lacking. The pictures are grainy and cannot be described as anything other than satisfactory. There is no detail in photographs even in good lighting inside houses. Photos appear out of focus. Noise and grain become more visible at this level.
It is better if nothing is said about pictures taken in low light. In our opinion, this was the worst output ever in this price range. The same can be said about video output. The output of this phone is nowhere near the output of other smartphones in the Rs 10,000 range.
performance
Panasonic Eluga Arc disappointed the most in terms of performance. As long as we had this phone, it kept crashing again and again. This happened even in simple and less difficult tasks. We can’t say with certainty that this problem is specific to our review unit.
When the phone doesn’t crash, it runs very slowly. Unlocking the phone, using the interface, running apps and browsing the internet, everything is slow. Based on the results of the benchmark test, we can say that almost all the smartphones in this price range were better than this handset from Panasonic.
Call quality is satisfactory. The sound coming from the rear speaker is a bit weak. The phone supports 4G network and generally remains connected to 4G network. The Eluga Arc’s battery lasted 8 hours and 9 minutes in our video loop test. In normal use it could hardly last for a whole day.
our decision
The Panasonic Eluga Arc looks good and has a good build quality. Its size will attract many users. We can’t say anything more than this in praise of the phone. Screen, performance, software, battery life and camera, it is an average device in every department. We cannot suggest you to buy this phone at this price because there are better options available.
The biggest problem is that the phone is not reliable. It would crash repeatedly while performing even small tasks. At a lower price than this, you will get Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Review) which is a much better device.
