Panasonic Jungle: iPhone and iPod Touch chunky contender

Panasonic has certainly been busy in recent months, not only have they been working on a new GH2 camera, toughbook and a Lumix phone but now there is the Panasonic Jungle. For those who do not know “The Jungle” is a portable handheld gaming console.

You may wonder why the camera maker wants in on the portable console market? Maybe they have seen how popular this market has become and feels that they have something to offer – but do they?

The Nintendo DS and the PSP currently dominate the market, but the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch are also big players. We just wonder if anyone out there will want a device as chunky as this – it’s not the smallest of devices?

The Panasonic Jungle has a clamshell design and is expected to come with a QWERTY keyboard – not certain why that is yet. We do worry that the size of the device will let it down, with Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky saying that this is something that we do not expect from a portable games console in 2010.