Tech

Lava Blaze 5G review: True value for money?


Once a popular Indian smartphone brand, Lava has faded over the past few years as industry heavyweights like Samsung and cash-rich Chinese brands like Realme and Redmi have taken over the market. universal smartphone school. However, Lava marked its resurgence in 2021 with the Lava Z series. Last year, the company also launched its first 5G smartphone in India named as Lava Agni 5G (Review). Now that 5G deployment is in place, Lava wants to attract buyers who want to experience 5G by spending the least amount of money. For such customers, the company has offered Lava Blaze 5G.

Lava Blaze 5G currently holds the title of ‘most affordable 5G smartphone’ in India. The smartphone comes with a MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC, a “glass back design” and a triple camera setup. Should you consider buying the Lava Blaze 5G? Here’s our review to help you find out.

Lava Blaze 5G price in India

The Lava Blaze 5G is available for purchase with a single 4GB + 128GB RAM option. The device is available in two colors — Glass Blue and Glass Blue. It is available for an introductory price of Rs. 9,999 in India when it launched, but it is currently listed for Rs. 10,999.

Design Lava Blaze 5G

Despite being a popular smartphone, the back of the Lava Blaze 5G is made of glass which is quite impressive. The device feels good to hold but is a bit heavy at 207g. The Glass Green color that Lava sent us also has a matte finish. If you are a person who likes pastel colors, you should love this color. While the back is made of glass, the flat frame around the phone uses plastic.

Lava Blaze WM 2 Lava Blaze 5G

Lava Blaze 5G with Glass Green color

The Lava Blaze 5G comes with a USB Type-C port sandwiched between the bottom single speaker and the headphone jack. On the right side is the power button cum fingerprint scanner function. The volume buttons on the left edge provide good feedback. The phone comes with a hybrid SIM slot, which supports expandable storage up to 1TB via microSD card.

The Lava Blaze 5G comes with a two-tone rectangular camera module on the back that doesn’t protrude much. On the front, the Blaze 5G has a waterdrop notch at the top of the screen. While the side and top bezels are quite thin, the device gets the typical budget treatment with a thick chin bezel.

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Lava Blaze 5G has quite thick bezels

Lava Blaze 5G comes with a 6.5-inch IPS LCD display with HD+ resolution (720×1600 pixels). The display also supports a 90Hz refresh rate for a slightly smoother scrolling and animation experience. The viewing angles are surprisingly good. The screen is quite bright and readable outdoors during the day, as long as you push the brightness to maximum. Lava Blaze 5G comes with WideVine L1 certification but on our device, Netflix detected WideVine L3 certification.

Lava Blaze 5G software and specifications

The outstanding feature of Lava Blaze 5G lies in its name. With support for eight 5G bands, the device is currently the most affordable 5G smartphone in India and comes with a MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC. We’ve seen chipsets elsewhere budget smartphone under Rs. 15,000 in India, including recently launched Redmi 11 Prime 5G (Review). The phone also comes with a 5000mAh battery. Although it supports 15W fast charging, the Blaze 5G comes with a 12W dual USB port charger in the box. In terms of connectivity, the phone supports Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, etc.

Lava Blaze WM 8 Lava Blaze 5G

Lava Blaze 5G runs stock Android 12

The Lava Blaze 5G delivers a clean, bloatware-free software experience with Android 12. There’s no lag and the overall experience for everyday tasks is pretty good. The company has promised to roll out the Android 13 update but has yet to specify a timeline. Lava has also promised to provide quarterly security updates for two years. At the time of this writing, our review unit had the September 2022 Android security patch.

Lava Blaze 5G Performance and Battery Life

The Lava Blaze 5G didn’t have any problems performing basic everyday tasks. Be it scrolling through social media or switching between apps, the phone did a great job. RAM management was not active but some background heavy apps reloaded when I got back to them. This is despite the multitasking window showing that the phone has around 2GB of RAM available.

When it comes to benchmark tests, the Lava Blaze 5G scored 507 and 1588 in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests. For comparison, the Redmi 11 Prime 5G, which comes with the same SoC, scored 521 and 1757 points. In AnTuTu, Lava Blaze 5G scored 269,416 points, much lower than the score of 3,37,683 points of Redmi 11 Prime 5G.

I also played a few games on the Lava Blaze 5G. Call of Duty: Mobile, for unknown reasons, took longer than usual to load. The game supports the ‘Medium’ graphics setting and the ‘High’ frame rate, resulting in an average frame rate of around 40fps. The overall gaming experience is good but there are occasional glitches. For those who want a casual gaming experience, the Lava Blaze 5G can do a great job.

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Lava Blaze 5G has a USB Type-C port on the bottom edge

The 5000mAh battery lasts more than a day easily thanks to the not-so-hungry SoC and the HD+ screen resolution. In our battery loop test, the Lava Blaze 5G ran for just 11 hours and 56 minutes, which is surprisingly below average. The included charger takes over three hours to charge the phone from 0 to 100 percent.

For biometrics, the Lava Blaze 5G has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner for quick authentication. It also supports AI face unlock, which while very flexible to unlock the device, is less secure than a physical scanner.

Lava Blaze Camera 5G

The Lava Blaze 5G has a triple camera setup on the back. However, only one of them is really useful. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera sensor, along with a 2-megapixel macro camera and a VGA sensor. For selfies, the phone comes with an 8-megapixel front camera.

Lava Blaze WM 3 Lava Blaze 5G

Lava Blaze 5G features a dual-tone camera module design

The main camera on the back works well when taking daytime photos. Although the dynamic range is poor, the sensor is still able to capture good details. It does tend to increase color though. Another thing to keep in mind is that the highlights are often lightened to get some detail in the shadows. In low light, the main camera takes decent photos, as long as there’s some ambient light. However, the lack of any form of stabilization results in shaky images and loss of some detail.

I prefer the front-facing camera, which is very accurate in capturing realistic skin tones. However, it does smooth the skin texture a bit. Performance in portrait mode is also quite good for a phone priced at Rs. 10,999.

Lava Blaze 5G camera samples (tap to see full size)

Take a camera sample in night mode on Lava Blaze 5G

Capture camera samples in portrait mode on Lava Blaze 5G

The Lava Blaze 5G can record up to 2K video using the rear camera, while the front camera can record 1080p video. Overall, videos shot on the Lava Blaze 5G offer a bit of enhanced color with decent details. Dynamic range is also pretty good, which I didn’t expect from the device.

judgment

The Lava Blaze 5G is suitable for many areas when it comes to low-cost 5G smartphones. While camera performance is the weakest link, it scores with design and performance. Battery life, while decent with real-world usage, performed poorly in our video drain test. The device also offers up to 8 5G bands in India. The display experience is also above average for a smartphone in this price segment.

Lava’s target customers for Blaze 5G are people who want to try out 5G without spending too much. There are a few shortcomings but when you look at the price tag, it’s hard to complain too much.


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