Name: Eluga
Brand: Panasonic

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Camera

Although the 8-megapixel camera on the Panasonic Eluga does the job nicely, there are a couple of notable omissions that we think we should address up front.

Firstly, there's no front-facing camera, so video calling using Skype and the like is a no-no. And, when it comes to taking shots at night-time, the lack of a flash is certainly going to prove troublesome.

But away from the negatives, the camera setup on the Panasonic Eluga really is quite good. Obviously the Japanese company has a lot of history and experience with camera UIs, and the Panasonic Eluga has been treated to a skinned setup rather than the standard Android affair.

It looks much more like what you'd expect on a dedicated compact camera rather than a smartphone, with plenty of options and shooting modes.

In terms of stills, the maximum resolution is 8 megapixels, although there are a number of resolution options available in the settings menu, including widescreen aspect ratios.

There is also a self-timer, effects such as Mono, Chic and Sepia, a wide range of focus options including Auto, Infinity, Manual, Macro and Touch, as well as 11 scene scenarios.

You can also fiddle around with the white balance and exposure, or use fun modes (which drop the resolution quality on some to VGA) such as Beauty, Collage, Frame, Panorama or - our favourite - Pinhole, which gives a nice soft focus around a centred object of desire. The smartphone camera also packs image stabilisation tech, and a digital zoom of up to 6.74x.

Although not likely to worry the HTC camp following the critical acclaim for the camera setup on its new One range, we were quite impressed with the results from the Panasonic Eluga's camera.

In daylight pictures were bright, clear and the contrast was pretty good, with only a touch of the usual blurriness that you get from smartphones when viewed at full size. It was only as the sun began to fall that its shortcomings were exposed.