Lava launched the Blaze 2 5G, the company’s latest 5G smartphone in the Blaze series, last week cheaper than the Blaze Pro 5G. This retains the Dimensity 6020 SoC, but comes with an HD+ to cut the cost. On-paper specifications are good, but is this the best phone to buy under Rs. 10,000? 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 Blaze 2 5G 6GB + 128GB in Glass Black colour
- 2-pin 18W fast charger
- USB Type-C to C cable
- Clear protective case
- SIM ejector tool
- User manual
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the Blaze 2 5G has a 6.56-inch Full HD+ LCD flat display with a pixel resolution of 1600 × 720 pixels and a pixel density of about 267 PPI. The display is bright, but the company has not mentioned the peak brightness. It doesn’t have HDR display.
You can also notice a small bezel below the display, which is bigger than the bezels on the sides and the top.
The phone has a 90Hz refresh rate display, compared to 60Hz refresh rate in most phones in the price range. 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.
The phone has a tiny centre punch-hole that houses an 8-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.
Coming to the button placements, the power button with the fingerprint sensor and volume rockers are present on the right side. A dedicated dual SIM slot is present on the left. The 3.5mm audio jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and speaker grill are present on the bottom. The sides have a plastic frame which has a matte finish, so it doesn’t attract fingerprints.
The phone has a glass back with a glossy finish that looks nice, but attracts fingerprints. Since it has a 5000mAh battery, it weighs 203 grams and is 8.45mm thick. With the bundled case, it does feel bulky to use since it has flat sides.
There is a ring light works as a notification light.
You can also use it as a timer switch, and make it remain on when charging. The light could have been brighter since it is not clearly visible in bright daylight.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with f/1.8 aperture, LED flash, secondary AI camera
- 8MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture
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 and Intelligent scanning.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots were decent, but the dynamic range is not the best even with auto HDR. After pixel binning, you get 12.5MP output from the main camera. Edge detection is average in portrait shots. The 8MP front camera is decent in daylight. Low-light camera samples are average, and the night mode doesn’t help much.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos at 2k resolution at 30 fps and doesn’t have OIS. There is EIS, but the video is slightly zoom in. The front camera can record videos at up to 1080p at 30 fps. Both are average.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 13 out of the box with Android security patch for August 2023. The company has confirmed an upgrade to Android 14 and said that it will get two years of security updates.
The phone has 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM out of which you get 5.6GB of usable RAM, and about 2.8GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It has up to 6GB of RAM extension or virtual RAM, 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 128GB, you get about 111.98GB of free storage. It has UFS 2.2 storage, and we got sequential read speeds of 1001.11MB/s.
Apart from the Google apps, it doesn’t have any third-party apps or any bloatware. It comes with stock Android dialer and messages app.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has a side-mounted 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. The phone has FM Radio with recording. 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 doesn’t have Widevine L1 and only has Widevine L3, so you can’t play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The Lava Blaze 2 5G has dual SIM 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/n8/n28/n41/n77/n78 5G bands, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, GPS + GLONASS, but it doesn’t have NFC support. I did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good and there are no connectivity issues on Wi-Fi, 4G or 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
Coming to the performance, this is powered by an Octa-Core MediaTek Dimensity 6020 7nm processor, which is the rebranded Dimensity 700. This is the same chip used in the Lava Blaze Pro 5G.
It has 2 x Cortex-A76 CPUs clocked at up to 2.2GHz and 6x Cortex-A55 CPUs at up to 2GHz. It has Mali-G57 MC2 950MHz. We did not face any issues or frame drops in games. It gets a bit warm on intensive gaming and 4G data use, but it doesn’t get too hot to handle. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) built-in battery. It did last for a day even with mixed use on 90Hz. With heavy use, it will last less than a day.
It has 18W fast charging, and with the bundled 18W fast charger, it takes about 40 minutes to charge up to 50% and close to 2 hours to charge it to 100%, which is good for a phone in the price range.
Conclusion
At a starting price Rs. 9,999, the Lava Blaze 2 5G is a good budget-friendly phone to consider if you are tight of the budget and need a phone with a stock Android experience without any bloatware. However, the camera performance is just average and the phone lacks Widevine L1 support.
Alternatives
Redmi 12 5G at a slightly higher cost is a good option, offering a FHD+ screen and a slightly faster SoC. realme narzo 60x 5G is also a good option in the range.
Pricing and availability
The Lava Blaze 2 5G is priced at Rs. 9,999 for the 4GB + 64GB model and the 6GB + 128GB model costs Rs. 10,999. The phone is available from Amazon.in and Lava India website online as well as offline stores.
Pros
- Stock Android experience without bloatware
- Smooth performance
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Average camera performance
- No Widevine L1 support