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The Panasonic Eluga - a tough, IP57-certified droid with a slender waistline - has landed in Europe. The Eluga packs a 4.3" qHD AMOLED screen with very little bezel around it - the front of the phone measures 123 x 62 mm, 68% of which is covered in screen. The phone is just 7.8mm thick and weighs only 103g, but is dust proof and can sit under 1.5m of water for 30 minutes.
The Eluga is NFC-enabled and is launching with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but Panasonic plans to upgrade it to Ice Cream Sandwich in the summer. The phone is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of built-in storage. The battery is rather small - 1150mAh - but Panasonic says it's good for up to 12 days of standby and up to 4 hours of talk time.
In Germany, the Panasonic Eluga can be had for 400 from either Amazon.de or GetGoods.de, while Guenstiger.de has it slightly cheaper at 370.
The Eluga will take a few days to cross the English channel - it should arrive on April 24 with Expansys charging £365 (440) for it. There don't seem to be other UK retailers that carry it at the moment, though Clove UK have its bigger brother, the Krait-packing, ICS-running Eluga Power, on pre-order and expect it to arrive in "late April".
Drop a line in the comments if you find the Panasonic Eluga from other retailers, other readers might find it helpful.
