Panasonic has recently announced the imminent Japanese release of 921P, a new mobile phone from its Viera line-up. The 921P comes in a clamshell form factor and doesn't look too different from the previous Viera handsets (NTT DoCoMo's P905i, for example).

Like all of Panasonic's latest phones announced for Japan, the new 921P brings a wide range of high-end features. First of all, the clamshell packs a 3.1 inch TFT Viera internal display with 480 x 854 pixels and 260K colors. Furthermore, it can be opened in two ways, which makes it perfect when it comes to viewing TV programs (the 921P features mobile TV capabilities, of course). There's also a 0.9 inch external OLED screen with 128 x 36 pixels, which can show info like incoming calls, messages and so on.

The other features of 921P include tri-band GSM connectivity (900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz) as well as HSDPA, built-in GPS with pre-installed maps, a 5.1 Megapixel camera with auto focus, flash and video recording (30fps in VGA mode), Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, Music and Video players, Web and email capabilities, pre-installed games microSD and microSDHC card support (up to 8GB). The phone's battery should last up to 220 minutes in talk-time mode or up to 410 hours in stand-by mode.

Starting tomorrow (the 2nd of August), the new Panasonic will be available in Japan via SoftBank, under the name of SoftBank 921P. There are no less than six color versions to choose from: white, black, pink, dark red, light green and gold. The price of 921P is not known for the moment, but it's undoubtedly a high one. Anyway, regardless of its price, Panasonic 921P is bound to be a Japan-only device, much like the vast majority of new handsets produced in the Asian country.