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Lava has recently made a comeback in the Indian market in the last few years and recently launched their latest phone, the Agni 3 in the Indian market.
I got the opportunity to go to their launch event after receiving an invite, so this article will be an overview of what this phone offers based on what I experienced.
Build & Design
The Lava Agni 3 is a full glass sandwich, which means it has a curved sheet of glass for both the front and the back panel.
The middle frame is made of plastic which is standard for that price, with a shiny metallic finish on top.
The phone comes in two colors: Pristine Glass (which is a white color which instantly reminded me of the Mi 11 Ultra), and Heather Glass (which is a dark purple color).
The phone is weighty and has a bit of heftyness to it, but the size & weight distribution could be troublesome for users with small hands.
Display
The phone has a 6.78-inch front display with a resolution of 1.5K (2652 × 1200p), a refresh rate of 120 Hz, a peak brightness of 1200 nits, and 1920 Hz PWM dimming.
Additionally, Widevine L1 is supported (which was an issue on some older Lava phones) so streaming on Netflix and Prime Video should not be an issue. YouTube HDR is also supported.
However, it is too early to say if Lava has gotten the display color calibration correct, since the predecessor Agni 2’s display showed wildly inaccurate and super-saturated color calibration and oversharpening issues.
Apart from this, the normal display is very standard for the price, but Lava created a unique selling point for this phone: Yes, just like the Mi 11 Ultra this reminds me of, it also has a display on the rear
Lava calls this the Agni InstaScreen, and it even has a cute dog for a mascot, which the company has named Firey. It is a 1.74-inch 60 Hz OLED 480p display, which allows you to do the following actions:
- See your notifications at a glance
- Shows the phone’s charging status
- You can set stopwatch and timers
- You can record voice memos
- You can take or decline calls
- Vitality Ring, which shows basic fitness features like steps and calorie tracking
- And, you can indeed take photos with the rear cameras using this external display
Hence, it will be useful for some people like me who keep their phones with the screen side down, but it also risks ending up as a gimmick for most users.
Only time will tell if this feature takes off, but this is definitely a feature that we don’t see every day and Lava has to be appreciated for bringing something unique to the table.
Performance
The phone is powered by the Mediatek Dimensity 7300X chipset, and this chipset choice is because it supports dual displays (such as the one this phone has).
But even if I keep that aside, the Dimensity 7300/7300X is a new chipset which has already established a solid reputation for giving good performance without sacrificing efficiency, and it is paired with 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 128 GB or 256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage.
As you can see within this clip, the animations within the UI run very smoothly, the only issue being that the camera app opening animation is glitched and needs a fix.
The phone also has a Vapour Chamber Cooling system to ensure proper thermal management.
Cameras
The next big highlight of the Agni 3 is its camera hardware, and the best part is that there’s no 2 MP trash here.
The camera information is as follows:
- 50 MP IMX766 main sensor, a 1/1.56″ sensor, paired with a f/1.88 lens, OIS, and also supports EIS for videos, supporting a maximum video recording resolution of 4K 30 fps
- 8 MP Ultrawide, this is an Omnivision sensor, with the f/2.2 lens having a 112 degrees FOV
- The best part is an 8 MP telephoto lens, via the Hynix Hi-847 sensor, a 1/4.4″ sensor paired with an f/2.4 lens, which supports 3x optical zoom and up to 30x digital zoom. No OIS here, sadly, but EIS is supported.
- The selfie camera is the generic 16 MP Samsung S5K3P9 sensor, with an f/2.45 lens.
From the camera and video samples I shot at the event, it feels that the company needs to work on its camera processing. I faced issues with washed-out colors, slow focusing on the telephoto lens, and too much noise in the Ultrawide shots.
(Note: I will be posting a thread sharing the camera samples I took from this phone on my Twitter account soon, so make sure to follow me at @SavageAryan007 if you want to see those)
So, while Lava has done well with the camera hardware of the Agni 3 for the price, it definitely needs some fine-tuning to improve the cameras further, which I hope happens soon via future software updates.
The camera app also has some weird limitations: while this is one of the rare phones that gives the Manual HDR On option, there’s no way to switch lenses in Pro Mode, which is very stupid.
We also faced a bug on the units we saw where the 3x lens switching would take a few seconds to occur after tapping on the 3x magnification in the viewfinder. Issues like these need to be ironed out as soon as possible.
Battery, Charging & Audio
The phone has two speaker grilles, one at the top of the frame and the other one at the bottom, giving us dual stereo speakers. They also support Dolby Atmos, but sadly, the phone does not have the 3.5 mm headphone jack.
It has a standard 5000 mAh battery, with support for 66W wired charging. Now, if you buy the version with the charger, they ship this phone with a 66W charger which supports USB-PD technology (but not PPS). This can be used to fast charge other devices as well, and providing a Type-C to Type-C cable like Lava does should be the norm, not the exception.
Lava has also given this phone an Action Button, which can be configured to perform certain actions or launch apps via single press, double press or Press & hold options. This button could end up being convenient to quickly launch the camera and take a few shots as well.
Software
The Lava Agni 3 boots on a software that resembles AOSP, but has a few custom software design bits at some places, and also supports auto-call and silent call recording, clone apps, it has its own camera app, and almost all of the basic features needed for Indian usage scenario.
It launches on Android 14 and will receive 3 major OS updates (Androids 15, 16 and 17) and 4 years of security patches (which will be released every 2 to 3 months), indeed representing a step in the right direction.
However, it remains to be seen if Lava can keep the Agni 3’s software stable over a long time, as a lot of Agni 2 users have reported random bugs and software issues on their phones.
Furthermore, this company is reliant on ODMs for most of its hardware and software development, and this is a very divisive way to make phones. I don’t personally mind it if an ODM is working with the company on the hardware (many bigger brands like Samsung do the same for their budget phones and then boot OneUI on top of that ODM hardware), but the issue arises, as in Lava’s case, where the software is also being developed by an ODM and the company effectively has zero control over where its software goes. I hope the Agni 3 changes this.
Pricing & Availability
The Lava Agni 3 has been priced aggressively as follows:
- 8/128 variant without charger: ₹20,999 (offer pricing: ₹19,999)
- 8/128 variant with charger: ₹22,999 (offer pricing: ₹20,999)
- 8/256 variant (comes with charger by default): ₹24,999 (offer pricing: ₹22,999)
The offer prices include a discount on SBI Credit and Debit Cards. Pre-orders will take place from the 4th to the 8th October, and open sales will start on 9th of October 2024 at midnight. The phone will be sold exclusively via Amazon and Lava’s official website (lavamobiles.com)
Also, Lava has provided the option where, if you are an Agni 1 or Agni 2 user, you can upgrade to the Agni 3 by paying ₹12,999 and ₹16,999 respectively. This offer can be availed from Lava’s official website (lavamobiles.com) on 8th October.
The company is also bringing its Free Replacement at Home policy to the Agni 3, under which if your phone faces issues if you damage it within the warranty period, they will replace your defective unit with a new fresh unit instead of repairing the phone.
The End
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