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Panasonic P51 breaks into the Indian phone market with a 5-inch screen and stylus (updated)
Although Panasonic's cellphones have traveled far from Japan, the company has left the hot Indian market relatively untapped -- until today, that is. The company is staking its first proper claim in the country with the launch of the P51. The Android 4.2-toting smartphone reflects the local market's taste for big-screened yet modest phones between its 5-inch, 720p LCD and quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek processor, but comes across as a sort of Galaxy Note lite: Panasonic bundles both a capacitive stylus and a magnetic flip cover in the box. The remaining hardware is a slightly unusual mix of budget and premium components, with the so-so 1GB of RAM and 4GB of expandable storage buffered by an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 1.3-megapixel front camera and support for both HSPA+ and dual SIM cards. The P51 will be comparatively expensive for India at 26,900 rupees ($517) contract-free when it's available next week, but it should be a bargain next to its pen-packing Samsung counterpart. Update: Panasonic is being a bit clever with its Indian foray -- we now know that the P51 shares a TCL-built design template with the Alcatel Scribe Easy, keeping the French phone's basic formula while upgrading the processor, camera and screen resolution. However, the P51 is definitely identical to the TCL Y900 in China.
BenQ lets the P51 piggie fly
Can it really be true? One year after announcing the P51 (we had a hands-on at CeBIT 2006 for crissake), BenQ has finally released the damn thing beyond the confines of China... and Singapore and Turkey too, apparently. Don't even get us started on the P50 this handset was meant to follow. It doesn't look like there's anything new on this FCC approved handset, but hey, we'll run down the specs again anyway: quad-band GSM / GPRS (that's right, not even EDGE), 802.11b/g WiFi, GPS, A2DP Bluetooth, SDIO slot, and 1.3 megapixel cam with a 2.83-inch QVGA touchscreen LCD for Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC to dance upon. We agree, a bit rusty for a 2007 release.
BenQ-Siemens P51 now available (in China, that is)
Save for a recent cameo in the FCC's files, BenQ's latest P51 Pocket PC phone has been a longstanding resident of vaporware land -- and thanks to the relentless, ever-onward march of time, a phone that had some folks drooling when it was first announced is now relegated to the midrange. Yeah, we're a little jaded about the whole thing, but anyone still interested in picking up the GPS-enabled QWERTY Pocket PC can apparently now do so over in China for around 6500 yuan ($825, give or take). Now if you'll excuse us, we need to walk to the Cingular store to pick up an HP hw6925 for, like, half the dinero.[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]
