Panasonic P31

The Panasonic P31 is a 5-inch budget smartphone that differentiates the experience with support for gestures that lets users quickly launch apps by drawing out patterns on the screen with their fingers.

Running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the P31 comes with gesture support. Users can draw various characters on the screen when the phone is locked in order to access various apps, such as SMS or the camera, or simply to unlock the phone without reaching for the power button. These gestures are always active, making general usage extremely convenient for the times you want to quickly access something on the device.

The front of the P31 is spearheaded by a 5-inch LCD display. Unfortunately, the big screen has a not-so-big resolution of 854x480 pixels, which results in a very poor pixel density that cannot produce sharp content. There is a 1.3GHz quad-core processor ticking away inside, along with 512MB of RAM. Like the screen, the chipset is quite run-of-the-mill, making the P31 usable only for general tasks like browsing and listening to music. Basic games, such as Temple Run and Angry Birds, should also run well enough.

Speaking of music, the P31 comes with Panasonic's proprietary music streaming service and a unique video player. Music and videos, along with images, can be put on the 4GB internal ROM or on a microSD slot should a user desire to expand the available storage amount. Users can share photos on Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and more using the built-in Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. There are dual SIM slots available as well.

The Panasonic P31 features an 8-megapixel primary camera that can shoot Full HD videos, and a VGA front camera for taking pictures from the front of the device. Running the show is a 2,000 mAh battery that is rated for more than 500 hours of standby time and more than 10 hours of talktime.