Panasonic Eluga vs Huawei Ascend P1 S

Panasonic re-enters the smartphone market with the Eluga and we compare it to Huawei's Ascend P1 S.

Form
Panasonic Eluga - 123 x 62 x 7.8 mm, 103g
Huawei Ascend P1 S - 127.4x64.8x6.7mm, 110g

Panasonic's Eluga heralds the company's return to the smartphone market after something of a hiatus and clearly it has been keeping an eye on the competition for stylistic trends.

The Eluga follows closely in the footsteps of other contemporary phones which have opted for a stark, rectangular shape, such as the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Samsung Galaxy S2, to name but a few.

The result is something that looks rather imposing, particularly in combination with its choice of a black or silver colour scheme and a suitably large 4.3-inch touchscreen, plus it's quite a large handset which only adds to this effect.

Despite the overall sharpness of its shape, there is a bit of softer contrasted provided by the curved edges on either side of the screen, while on the back panel things are kept simple and discreet with an unobtrusive camera lens.

On the front the buttons are capacitive and the icons are subtle, around the screen is a very thin bezel which gives an up-to-date and premium look.

Another noteworthy point about the Eluga's build quality is that it water proof in a depth of up to
Huawei's Ascend P1 S has a similar design ethos but it's a little bit bolder with two-tone white and black or pink and black variants available as well as a completely black option.

The design has much more in common with Samsung's Galaxy S2 and the main way in which it distinguishes itself from that particular phone, apart from the Huawei branding, of course, is by having its surfaces, edges and corners more rounded off and softened.

It also appears quite shiny on the whole, which makes us wonder about the quality of the plastic used.

There's not a lot between these two on looks, they're interesting enough aesthetically without being anything groundbreaking.

Winner - Draw

Display
Both devices have 4.3-inch capacitive multi-touch displays with 960x540 pixel resolutions and pixel densities of 256 pixels-per-inch (ppi). They also both use AMOLED technology, but where the Panasonic Eluga uses conventional AMOLED the Huawei Ascend P1 S has gone up a notch to Super AMOLED, which has a number of benefits, and it also uses Corning's Gorilla Glass for some extra durability.

Picture sharpness should be pretty much comparable as the pixel density is the same on each, but the Ascend should have better brightness, more efficient power consumption and better performance in bright sunlight than its opponent.

Between these two the perks of the Huawei Ascend's setup make it a clear winner.

Winner - Huawei Ascend P1 S

Storage
The Huawei Ascend has 4GB of onboard storage and 1GB of RAM, along with micro SD support for cards up to 32GB in capacity.

The Eluga has twice as much onboard storage at 8GB and the same 1GB of RAM for processing phone tasks, but there's no card slot to be found, unfortunately.

This means that the Ascend has a much higher top-end capability between its relatively small internal capacity and the large amount of space a 32GB card offers.

Of course, it's also a bonus that it has the flexibility of card storage for transferring data around.

Winner - Huawei Ascend P1 S