Panasonic, an emerging player in the smartphone market has upped the ante with the latest launch of its two new devices, the Eluga Ray X and its bigger brother, the Eluga Ray Max, in India. But what stole the show was Panasonic’s new virtual assistant named Arbo, rolling out shortly, come April.
Eluga Ray Max
The Eluga Max Ray will hit the market in 32GB and 64GB variants with the former priced at Rs 11,499 ($176) and the latter at Rs 12,499 ($192). Arbo is expected to follow the trail of their releases and will be launched shortly after the devices. Both smartphones will be available only on Flipkart and are expected to reach customers in April.
A new virtual assistant
It looks like Panasonic has also joined the AI squad by dropping ‘Arbo’, an intelligent virtual assistant that Panasonic claims to ‘evolve’ with the usage patterns. Panasonic says Arbo’s machine learning capabilities allow it to make smart suggestions to the user, based on previous user behavioral patterns. As of now, Arbo is capable of suggesting profile settings, most-used apps, and automatic Bluetooth linking if the user has paired the phone with a device in the past.
Arbo derives its name from Esperanto, a structure that supports climbers and creepers. And while Panasonic reiterates that Arbo is still in its initial stage, it is expected to be integrated into third party apps as the virtual assistant learns more and its lessons, put to use in future smartphones from Panasonic.
Features of Eluga Ray Max
The Eluga Ray Max packs a 1.4GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset complimented by a 4GB RAM, matched on the outside by a 5.2” FHD display secured by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The dual-sim phone will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The 16MP primary camera comes with dual-LED flash while the 8MP secondary camera has a wide lens and front-flash to capture that landscape selfie even at low lights. With a 3000mAh battery, the Eluga Ray Max also features Panasonic’s fast charging technology, Quick Charge 3.0.
Eluga Ray X is a bigger variant
This dual-SIM smartphone flaunts a 5.5” HD IPS display and packs a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek 430 processor and 3GB RAM. It features a fingerprint scanner and a 4000mAh battery. A 13MP primary camera comes with dual-LED while the secondary camera is 5MP. The 32GB internal memory can be stretched up to 64GB through a microSD card.
With Panasonic, a budget device maker, entering the AI sphere, one thing becomes certainly clear – AI and virtual assistants are no more the monopolies of high-end smartphones.