Panasonic Z800

Cancelled
27th October 2004

The Panasonic Z800 is the company's first attempt at a 3G phone. Physically similar in looks the X700 Smartphone, this is a fairly conventional looking clamshell design at first glance, and it's hard to tell from the Z800's compact dimensions that this is a 3G phone at all.

Measuring 97 x 49 x 26mm, it's a bit larger and heavier than a typical high-end clamshell, but compared with other 3G phones, it's quite small, even smaller than the LG U8120. Inside is a fairly standard 176x220 pixel TFT display in 65,000 colours, with a 64  x96 pixel 56,000 colours STN sub-display.

The primary camera is a useful 1.3 megapixels with autofocus, and added to that is a 110k pixel secondary camera for making video calls. Also, the Panasonic Z800 comes with miniSD card support so that the internal memory can be expanded, which is convenient for capturing and recording stills and video clips. Audio playback is in stereo, although Panasonic have not said what media formats the Z800 supports.

In addition to being a 3G UMTS handset, the Z800 also supports tri-band GSM and GPRS when roaming out of a 3G area. Connectivity to a PC or other devices is possible via Bluetooth, infra-red or USB 2.0 connections.

The Z800's software includes and email client, WAP 2.0 browser, Java and of course MMS, SMS and polyphonic ringtones.

As far as looks go, the Panasonic Z800 is smart enough but nothing special, but it retains a family resemblance with other handsets in the range.

We've waited for a while to see a decent handset out of Panasonic, and we're happy to say that the Z800 is a well specified handset that manages to fit some desirable features in a reasonably small phone. While it lacks the high specifications of the Sharp 902, it's a lot better than most 3G offerings.

Panasonic haven't given a launch date for the Z800 yet, and this is a bit of a worry because they seem to have a problem getting their products to market in a timely way. In fact, the Z800 is still in the late prototype stage at time of going to press. Still, there's a growing market for handsets of this type, and certainly the commercial pressures are there to encourage Panasonic to get the Z800 onto the streets.

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