On an event held today at New Delhi, Japanese giant, Panasonic launched two new budget smartphones, namely Eluga Ray Max and Eluga Ray X in the country. Now, what’s interesting about these smartphones is that they come packed with ‘Arbo’ – the company’s in-house developed AI-based virtual assistant.
With the majority of smartphone players bringing in their own virtual assistants, Panasonic certainly does not want to stay out of the league. Their AI assistant ‘Arbo’ is equipped with self-learning technology and hence evolves according to the user’s usage pattern. It will display frequently used apps and further save their location and time impressions. Most commonly preferred settings and paired Bluetooth devices will also be prompted for action on the screen itself.
Panasonic is currently in talks with third-party developers to integrate their skills into Arbo. It also plans to launch a Phase 2 for Arbo, where it will announce new capabilities and developed skills for the virtual assistant.
However, Arbo will be the center of attraction in Eluga Ray Max and Eluga Ray X. The release of the devices is expected next month, with Flipkart holding the rights for exclusive sales. Speaking about Arbo, Manish Sharma, President and CEO, Panasonic India and South Asia, and Executive Officer, Panasonic Corporation said,
With the launch of our first AI-enabled smartphones, we are now expanding our product offerings which will help empower our consumer base and assist them in performing tasks in a smarter way.
Eluga Ray Max
The handset features a 5.2-inch full-HD display powered by a 1.4GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor paired with 4GB of RAM. Eluga Ray Max runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and will be available in two inbuilt storage variants — 32GB storage at Rs. 11,499 and 64GB storage at Rs. 12,499. Both of these smartphones are expandable up to 128GB via microSD card slot.
Under the camera section, the dualSIM phone sports a 16-MP rear camera with dual-LED flash and an 8-megapixel selfie camera. The front facing camera comes with a wide-angle lens and offers a front flash. A fingerprint scanner is embedded within the home button of the device.
Eluga Ray Max will be available in three colour variants– Gold, Metallic Silver, and Rose Gold. It is packed with a 3000mAh battery having support for Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging tech. The sensors included in this device include an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, magnetometer, and proximity sensor. As for connectivity, it includes 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS/ A-GPS, FM radio with RDS, and Micro-USB with OTG support.
Eluga Ray X
The dual-SIM smartphone sports a 5.5-inch HD (720 x 1280 pixels) IPS display. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core SoC coupled with 3GB of RAM. Similar to Eluga Ray Max, the said device comes with a fingerprint scanner integrated into the home button of the device and will be available in the same three colour variants– Gold, Metallic Silver, and Rose Gold.
The handset features a 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It offers 32 GB of inbuilt storage expandable up to 128GB via microSD card. Though the phone is graded lower in camera and storage section, it beats the Max version with its 4000 mAh battery support. The connectivity options for this device include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio with RDS, and Micro-USB with OTG support.
