Review: Panasonic Eluga Mark Leaves a Mark With its Performance
Panasonic has packed a competitive edge among the budget smartphones by including a fingerprint scanner in Eluga Mark
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Panasonic, the Japanese consumer electronics giant, is a brand well known for the quality it offers. With the company now focusing heavily on the smartphone segment, it’s interesting to look at the aggressive pricing on really well-built devices.
Panasonic Eluga Mark retails at Rs 11,400. Does it justify the investment? Read on.
What’s Good?
Panasonic Eluga Mark offers a metallic-finish smartphone that is slim and looks quite premium, especially in the Gold colour. The back panel is plastic which provides a firm grip on an otherwise large phone. Eluga Mark has a 5.5-inch HD IPS display, offering vibrant colours and clear images.
The design looks minimal on the front, but the back of the phone is where it changes the game. Below the embellished camera at the back lies a square frame that houses the fingerprint scanner, a nifty feature which gives this smartphone an edge over the competition. The scanner is quick and five different fingers can be programmed to start different applications.
The Eluga Mark is only the second phone that offers a fingerprint scanner under Rs 15,000, after Coolpad’s Note 3, which retails at Rs 8,999.
The dual-SIM 4G smartphone carries a 13 megapixel snapper at the back and a 5 megapixel shooter at the front. The cameras produce natural colours and captures neat details in well-lit conditions.
Eluga Mark runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with a custom skin ‘Fit Home’ overlaid, where the app drawer has icons placed closely on the lower half of the phone. This makes it easier for one-hand operation.
Under the hood, the phone packs a quad core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB RAM. Gameplay on the smartphone was smooth, and the device didn’t heat-up either.
Key Specifications: Panasonic Eluga Mark
- Display: 5-inch 1280x720 pixels
- Operating System: Android 5.1 Lollipop
- Processor: Quad-core Snapdragon 615
- RAM: 2GB
- Storage: 16GB expandable up to 32GB
- Rear Camera: 13MP
- Front Camera: 5MP
- Battery: 2,500mAh
Price: Rs 11,400
What’s Bad?
The Eluga Mark has packed in a serious list of specification, but we wish it could have had supplied a battery to match. The smartphone has a 2,500mAh battery that lasted just around 5-6 hours with moderate usage. In fact, in our review device, the charge count dropped from 100 to 99 as soon as it was unplugged after a full charge.
The camera, disappointed us on the clarity despite producing nice colours. The pictures were often grainy, and the situation worsened with lowering light conditions.
There was often a lag between registering the fingerprint and the home screen appearing, which was also seen while switching between applications.
Why Buy It?
Panasonic Eluga Mark competes with the likes of Lenovo K3 Note, Xiaomi Mi4 and Motorola G 3rd Gen. The one thing that sets it apart from the other phones is the fingerprint scanner.
If a fingerprint scanner is your priority, then we advise you to ‘mark’ this budget phone as your choice.