Panasonic Eluga smartphone announced

Panasonic has confirmed it is entering the European smartphone market in 2012 with the Panasonic Eluga.

Panasonic may be a brand you're more used to associating with TVs and cameras, but the company has just announced it will be entering the European smartphone market in 2012 with the unveiling of the Panasonic Eluga. The super-slim Eluga - which stems from the phrase 'elegant user-orientated gateway, apparently - features a 4.3-inch OLED screen, 1GHz dual-core processor, 8GB of on-board storage and an eight-megapixel camera.

It runs Android Gingerbread 2.3.5, with an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich expected from this summer, measures in at a teeny 7.8mm thin and packs near field communication (NFC) tech for quick, contactless payments.

It's a tough cookie too, promising to be dustproof and waterproof up to one metre. It can even share and stream content to your TV wirelessly, due to a neat-sounding 'Swipe and Share' function.

This Android handset is the company's first smartphone for the European market. Panasonic had previously pulled out of producing phones for overseas in 2005, choosing to focus more on Japan, where it has the country's second largest market share for mobile phones.