Two devices from Panasonic have been launched in India today, and they can be purchased from the online retailer Flipkart starting on September 21. The smaller of the two devices, the Panasonic Eluga Ray 500, sports a 5.0-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 by 720. It is powered by the MediaTek’s MT6737 processor, comprised of a quad-core ARM Cortex A53 CPU clocked at 1.25GHz and the Mali T-720 GPU. This handset is getting dual rear cameras, equipped with one 13-megapixel sensor and one 8-megapixel sensor, while the single front-facing camera has a 5-megapixel sensor. To keep the device’s lights on, the smartphone includes a 4,000mAh battery. The Eluga Ray 500 also comes with a Hybrid Dual SIM card slot, which means that placing a microSD card in the phone will use up one of the nanoSIM card slots.
Meanwhile, the larger Panasonic Eluga Ray 700 sports a 5.5-inch IPS On Cell display with a resolution of 1920 by 1080. Powering the handset is the MT6753 chipset from MediaTek, which contains eight ARM Cortex A53 CPUs, divided into two quad-core clusters with one cluster clocked at up to 1.5GHz and another group with a maximum frequency of 1.3GHz, and the Mali-T720 GPU. Compared to the Eluga Ray 500, the device only sports one rear camera equipped with a 13-megapixel sensor, although the resolution of the front-facing camera has been increased to 13-megapixel. The smartphone also contains a larger 5,000mAh battery despite the slimmer body.
Both devices are equipped with a fingerprint scanner located below the display and embedded in the home button. The two handsets are also equipped with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal flash storage that can be expanded with a microSD card. It also has support for 4G VoLTE, a feature that allows the user to make calls and access the internet at the same time without resorting to slower 3G networks. LTE bands supported by the Eluga Ray 500 include bands 3, 5, and 40, and it is likely that its larger counterpart supports the same frequencies. Panasonic claims that both devices will be equipped with the stock version of Android 7.0 Nougat, which may mean that both smartphones may receive security updates and operating system upgrades rather quickly. The Panasonic Eluga Ray 500 is priced at Rs. 8,999, which translates to $140 at the current exchange rate, while the Eluga Ray 700 is available for Rs. 9,999 ($155), and both smartphones can be purchased in Champagne Gold, Mocha Gold, and Marine Blue colors.
