Panasonic made its intention to re-enter the European smartphone market clear around November last year, then sent out a preview image of its first new phone in December. At the time it didn’t have a name, but now, almost on the eve of Mobile World Congress, Panasonic has released more pictures and all the new specs.

It’s named the Eluga, which apparently stands for ‘Elegant User Gateway,’ and is Panasonic’s first European phone since 2006. It’s a good-looking device too, with a 7.8mm thick chassis which weighs just 103 grams. That’s slimmer and lighter than a Samsung Galaxy S II.

It’s blessed with a 4.3-inch touchscreen and a qHD resolution of 960 x 540, plus it’s powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor from Texas Instruments. There’s 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot to boost this figure.

On the rear of the device sits an 8 megapixel auto-focus camera, which also records video, however Panasonic hasn’t stated at which resolution. The Eluga is also waterproof to IP57 standards and other features include NFC connectivity, Bluetooth 2.1, DLNA and GPS.

The Eluga will initially use Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread as its OS, but Panasonic promise an update to Ice Cream Sandwich will be coming in the spring. According to The Telegraph, the Eluga will be priced at around £400 when it goes on sale in April, and that the company will continue to produce high-end devices in the future.

Expect more information on the Eluga next week.

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