Panasonic models phone after Viera TV line

It's always seemed a bit odd that a company would model a phone after a successful line of TVs, but that appears to be a trend of sorts in Japan. Sony, for example, did this by coming out with a Bravia phone based on its high-end TVs by the same name. And now Panasonic appears to be taking the same route.

Sporting a 3.5-inch VGA widescreen, the seductively named P905iTV slider is supposed to reflect the design of Panasonic's Viera plasma TVs. The specs listed on Electronista may indicate that the phone is almost more concerned with its video delivery than communications features, including a 4,000:1 contrast ratio, 854x480 resolution, and something called "LCD Artificial Intelligence" that automatically adjusts brightness levels.

Oh right, the phone part. Offered by Japan's DoCoMo, it's a 3G handset with a 2-megapixel camera and microSD slot that claims to have 230 minutes of talk time and 660 hours on standby. But given its mission, it's probably just as important to note that it supposedly gets 160 minutes of video playback per charge.