Panasonic Eluga Ray 700: Amazing Value For Money

The Eluga Ray 700 has a metal body with a symmetrical design. The chamfered edges running all over the device give it a premium look and feel in the hand. We were amazed to see how slim and light the device is, in spite of its massive battery. The buttons and ports are placed ergonomically, and we did not encounter any difficulties while using the device. Overall, the Panasonic Eluga Ray 700 has a very good build quality and a premium design.

5.5-inch Display Protected By Corning Gorilla Glass

The device has a 5.5-inch LCD display, which is an industry standard nowadays for smartphones that are priced under Rs. 15,000. Moving forward, the display has Full HD resolution, and it is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass. We tested the device outdoors and found that the display can go pretty bright; the automatic brightness works perfectly too. As for the colour reproduction, it is slightly on the punchier side for an exciting visual experience.

13MP Primary Camera And 13MP Selfie Camera

The primary camera on the device has a 13MP resolution, and we were relieved to know that it has phase-detection autofocus (PDAF) too. If you aren’t familiar with the term ‘phase-detection autofocus’; it is a focusing technology that helps in focusing faster on the subject, especially in low-light conditions, thus making it easier for the user to capture moments instantly. Below the 13MP sensor is an LED flash.

Coming to the camera UI; it has a ‘beauty mode’ toggle that softens the skin tone and reduces blemishes to make you look more beautiful. It has HDR and Panorama modes as well, which comes standard in any smartphone nowadays. As we were swiping through the camera options, we discovered that the camera has support for RAW image capture, and we were blown away by it. The RAW image capture is present only on some of the high-end smartphones and having this feature on a smartphone that costs just Rs. 9,999 is great.

The feature that allows RAW image capture is very useful for people who like to edit the image heavily. Another gem we found in the camera UI was EIS (electronic image stabilisation), which reduces the shakiness in video recording. Speaking of video recording, the device can record Full HD videos at 30 frames per second.

Moving on to the front camera, it has a whopping 13MP resolution. Now, that is something which stands out of the crowd. In contrast, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 only has a 5MP selfie snapper. The 13MP front shooter is aided by an LED flash, which will come as a great relief in low-light conditions. The images taken from the selfie camera have a good amount of details and sharpness into them. The 13MP camera and an LED flash make an excellent combination for all the selfie maniacs out there.

Clean UI & Ample Performance

The Panasonic Eluga Ray 700 is powered by an octa-core MediaTek MT6753 chipset and 3GB of RAM. In terms of real-world performance, the device performs smoothly, and we think that is mainly due to the optimised stock Android UI more than its powerful processor. We ran multiple applications at once to check the performance under heavy load, and we did not see any lag whatsoever. The internal storage is 32GB, and there is a microSD card slot to expand the storage up to 128GB. Also, the device has a front-mounted fingerprint scanner that is fast and accurate.

Coming to the software side, the device ships with Android 7.0 Nougat operating system and as mentioned earlier, it has stock Android UI. We were pleased to see the stock Android UI implementation as many smartphones in the market have a custom UI, and they don’t look great. Having a stock Android UI doesn’t mean the device misses out on customisation features; it has ‘NavigationBar Pattern’ with which one can choose between on-screen and physical navigation buttons. There is also ‘DuraSpeed’, which boosts the device performance by restricting background app usage.

Massive 5000mAh Battery

The 5000mAh battery inside the Eluga Ray 700 is another stand out feature. The competitor smartphones do come with large battery capacities up to 4000 mAh, but the Panasonic Eluga Ray 700’s  5000mAh battery capacity is entirely on an another level. It lasted us two entire days under moderate usage. Panasonic has not only put a large battery into the device, but they have also thought about the after-effect of a large battery and have provided with a 10W charging system to avoided longer charging times.

Conclusion: Amazing Value For Money

The Panasonic Eluga Ray 700 has a better selfie camera and a larger battery than the rest of its competitors. It has an advantage of a non-hybrid SIM card slot, which is of great use in India. It also features stock Android UI, good display, ample processing power, and ample storage. Now, we don’t see any reason why anyone wouldn’t choose the Panasonic Eluga Ray 700 over any other smartphones in this price range. It offers amazing value for money.