Lava launched the Agni 2 5G, the company’s second smartphone in the Agni series, as the successor to the Agni 5G which was launched back in 2021. The Agni 2 5G has several upgrades in almost every part, and it is also competitively priced. On-paper specifications are good, but is it worth buying? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Display, Hardware and Design |
| Camera |
| Software, UI and Apps |
| Fingerprint sensor |
| Music player and Multimedia |
| SIM and Connectivity |
| Performance and Benchmarks |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- Lava Agni 2 5G 8GB + 256GB in Viridian colour
- 2-pin 66W fast charger
- USB Type-C to C cable
- Clear protective case
- SIM ejector tool
- USB Type-C to 3.5mm converter
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the Agni 2 5G has a 6.78-inch Full HD+ AMOLED curved display with a pixel resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of about 388 PPI. The display is bright, and has HDR support. Outdoor visibility is good as well, thanks to 950 nits peak brightness. There is an issue with the software, so in the auto brightness mode the display gets high or too low randomly, so this needs to be fixed.
The phone has a 120Hz refresh rate display, compared to 90Hz in the Agni 5G. You can notice the high refresh rate, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming. It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube, but not in Netflix.
Under the display options, there are different options to adjust colours based on your preference. There is also a night light option that lets you reduce the display’s blue light emission, so it doesn’t cause eye strain when you are reading at night. There is Dark mode and an always-on display option for the lock screen, but it doesn’t offer a lot of customization. It doesn’t have MEMC or DC Dimming option. The phone comes with Schott Xensation glass protection.
The phone has a tiny centre punch-hole that houses a 16-megapixel camera, which doesn’t disturb when watching videos since it just occupies a small space. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge, but this doesn’t double up as a secondary speaker.
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner. You can also notice a small bezel below the display, which is slight bigger than the bezels on the sides and the top.
Coming to the button placements, the power button and volume rockers are present on the right side. There is nothing on the left. The dual SIM slot, USB Type-C port, microphone and speaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is present on the top. It doesn’t have a microSD expansion slot. The sides have a plastic frame which is glossy and attracts fingerprints.
The phone comes in a single colour with a glass back that matte finish that looks and feels premium and doesn’t attract fingerprints, but it’s a bit slippery if you use it without a case. Since it has a glass back, it is quite heavy at 210 grams, even though it packs a 4700mAh battery, and the weight distribution is decent. The phone is 8.75 mm thick.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with 1/1.55″ sensor, f/1.88 aperture, 1um pixel size
- 8MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 2MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture
- 2MP macro sensor with f/2.4 aperture
- 16MP front camera with f/2.5 aperture, 1.0µm pixel size
The camera UI is simple with options for night mode, video, photo, film, portrait, beauty and the more option has GIF, Pro mode, Panorama, UHD, Slow motion, time-lapse, Macro and Intelligent scanning.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots came out well in good lighting, but the dynamic range is not the best, so you will need to enable HDR. After pixel binning, you get 12.5MP output from the main camera. For ultra-wide, you get 8MP output, but the images look washed out. There is also macro option, but 2MP is useless. The 16MP front camera is decent in daylight, but not the best in low-light. Low-light camera samples are average, and the night mode doesn’t help much.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos at 4k resolution at 30 fps and doesn’t have OIS. There is EIS which works in 2K, but the video is slightly zoom in. There is no option to shoot video with the ultra-wide camera. The front camera can record videos at up to 1080p at 30 fps.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 13 out of the box with Android security patch for March 2023. The company has promised 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates for the phone. You don’t get any bloatware.
The phone has 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM out of which you get 7.5GB of usable RAM, and about 3GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It has up to 8GB of RAM extension or virtual RAM, and it is set to 6GB by default, which you can disable. The DuraSpeed feature lets you restrict apps from running in the background, but it tends to kill some important apps like music player when it’s running, so just make sure you disable it for important apps.
Out of 256GB, you get about 230GB of free storage. It has UFS 2.2 storage, and we got sequential read speeds of 981/4MB/s. Apart from the Google apps, it doesn’t have any third-party apps.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an in-display optical fingerprint sensor that immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor. There is also face unlock option.
Music Player and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player. It doesn’t have Dolby Atmos or any other custom audio features. Audio through the mono speaker is decent, but the company could have offered a stereo speaker option. Audio through the headphones is good as well. The phone has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. You also get HDR playback on YouTube, but not on Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The Lava Agni 2 5G has dual SIMs with support for 5G in both the SIMs. The phone has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with support for n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n40/n41/n66/n77/n78 5G bands, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax (2.4 + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.2, GPS + GLONASS, but it doesn’t have NFC support. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good. There are no connectivity issues on Wi-Fi or 4G / 5G.
Lava has not mentioned the exact SAR value of the phone on the site, in the box, and it is also not revealed on the phone, which just shows <1.6W/Kg that is the limit in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the first phone to be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 6nm SoC, which is just a rebranded Dimensity 1080 used in several phones. It has 2 x A78 CPUs clocked at up to 2.6GHz, 6x A55 CPUs clocked at up to 2GHz. It has Mali-G68 MC4 and 8GB LPDDR4X RAM.
The performance is smooth without any lags, and it also offers smooth gaming performance even in graphic intensive games. When you play graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact, it gets a bit hot. It reached maximum 41º in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, which is decent, but this might vary outdoors in 4G or 5G.
That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 4700mAh (typical) built-in battery, which is slightly smaller than the 5000mAh in the Agni 5G. However, it did last for a day even with mixed use on 120Hz. I got over close to 5 and half hours of screen on time with over a day of use on Wi-Fi. With heavy use, it will last less than a day.
It has 66W fast charging, and takes about 20 minutes to charge up to 50% and less than an hour to charge it to 100%.
Conclusion
At a price Rs. 21,999, the Lava Agni 2 5G offers a great value for what you pay. It is a major upgrade to the Agni 5G and adds an AMOLED curved display, Dimensity 7050 that offers a good performance and a decent gaming performance without heating issues.
However, the low-light camera performance, ultra-wide camera and 2MP macro camera are not up to the mark, and it lacks stereo speakers. Hope Lava fixes the display brightness and minor software bugs as well.
Alternatives
The latest realme 11 Pro 5G is a direct competitor with a similar curved AMOLED screen and the same processor, but it is costly for the 8GB + 256GB model.
Pricing and availability
The Lava Agni 2 5G goes on sale through Amazon.in for Rs. 21,999 every week, but it sells out quickly. The company offered Rs. 2000 bank discount for the first two sales.
It also offers Agni Mitra service offering Free Replacement at Home for Agni 2 users. With this industry first approach, during the warranty period, the phone will be replaced in any scenario of hardware issues.
Pros
- 120Hz curved AMOLED display
- Stock Android experience without bloatware
- Solid build quality
- Smooth performance
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Minor software bugs needs to be fixed
- Slightly heavy and a bit slippery
- Average ultra-wide and low-light camera performance
- No stereo speakers