Lava Agni 2 Review: Is the Fiery 'Agni' Hype Real?

Okay, so for the past few weeks, I have been using the Lava Agni 2 as my primary phone! And this is actually the first time we have tested a Lava phone at Gadgetbyte and we have been really impressed in many ways. For us, this phone has pretty much lived up to its hype. But I have to tell you, getting this phone was not easy. I bought this unit from Amazon after a lot of struggle. The phone would go on sale and right after a few minutes, it would be no longer available. And that went on a couple of times until I finally managed to get my hands on it. So, even though there are a ton of positive reviews of this device out there, availability is still a big question mark. Anyway, talking about the device itself, first of all, the pricing is really good. But you have to note that INR 20,000 was just an introductory price for it and its actual MRP is INR 22,000 right now. The reason I am mentioning this is because introductory prices are actually not available for a longer time and sometimes it can get really misleading. And the device is likely to launch here in Nepal as well at NPR 39,999 (expected).

Lava Agni 2 Specifications:

• Display: 6.78-inch AMOLED, 120Hz refresh rate
• Resolution: FHD+ (2400 x 1080 pixels), 20:9 aspect ratio
• Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 7050 5G (6nm Mobile Platform)
• Memory: 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, 256GB UFS 2.2
• Software & UI: Agni Shapath OS on top of Android 13
• Rear Camera: Quad
  • 50MP primary
  • 8MP ultrawide
  • 2MP macro
  • 2MP depth
• Front Camera: 16MP (punch-hole)
• Audio: Stereo speakers, Hi-Res Audio
• Security: In-display fingerprint sensor
• Battery: 4700mAh with 66W fast charging

Still, for the price, Lava has provided really competitive specs, but at the same time, there are a few things the company urgently needs to fix! So, let’s talk about the good things first. Starting with the design!

Design

For the price, I really appreciate the look and feel of this device. It's pretty well built too, but after recently reviewing the Realme 11 Pro, I feel like the design of the Agni 2 is not as refined as Realme. It is also slightly on the heavier side for a device that has a relatively smaller 4700 mAh battery, but it's not extremely uncomfortable to use, so getting used to it is not a problem. The glass back has also not suffered any scratches till now and even though we have not put in a screen protector, surprisingly, there are no scratches on the front too.

Display

Lava Agni 2’s display quality is also quite good. It’s a 10-bit AMOLED panel and it has a very good touch response. I found the colors on it to be a bit too saturated and contrasty. And that's not just in the vivid profile but also in the default profile. But after using it for a good number of days, I’ve just gotten used to it. So, if the boosted colors are not a problem, this is a pretty good display to look at for general usage. It’s actually very close to what the more expensive Realme 11 Pro offers.

Media Playback

Having said that, I really wish that Lava had provided a stereo speaker setup to amp up the content consumption experience. I mean, the single speaker here is loud and is not bad per se, but you definitely will miss the stereo output. Also, there is no HDR playback support on Netflix here, and even on Amazon Prime, HDR content looks somewhat soft and weird. Apart from that, interacting with this display has been a pleasant experience, and one of the reasons why is that Lava has included a good haptic motor on this phone. The vibration here is strong and you can feel the phone buzzing even when you are carrying it in your bag, so that’s really nice.

Performance

The performance level of the Lava Agni 2 is pretty satisfactory too. It features the same Dimensity 7050 chipset as the Realme 11 Pro. And general usage on this phone including app opening and multitasking is smooth enough. Sometimes there would be a little bit of stutter here and there, but that’s really not a big deal. Gaming on it is not bad either. The Dimensity 7050, as we know, is not exactly a gaming chipset, but this phone certainly can handle titles like Call of Duty and PUBG quite easily. And thanks to a vapor cooling chamber, the phone can handle 30 to 40 minutes of Genshin Impact. That is at Medium graphics settings without overheating and fps drop, so that's good too. The Agni 2 is also optimized for higher fps gameplay in games like Injustice 2 and Mech Arena, which, by the way, even the Realme 11 Pro is not equipped for.

Camera

With that, let me talk about the things that need a little bit of fixing on the Lava Agni 2 starting with the cameras. So, if I have to summarize Agni 2’s camera capabilities, I wouldn't say that they are reliable and consistent.

Main Camera

Its 50MP primary sensor works well during good lighting conditions with nice colors and contrast levels. But as soon as you go out in slightly difficult lighting, it messes up the HDR pretty badly. In portraits too, sometimes you get nice images with pleasing skin tones. While other times the background looks extremely unnatural and exposed. The same goes for the selfies as well.

Ultrawide

And don’t even get me started with the ultra-wide shots, the Lava Agni 2 produces one of the worst ultra-wide images in the midrange price bracket. Honestly, looking at the ultra-wide shots, I wish they had skipped the sensor altogether.

Night

During night time too, sometimes the output would be nice and sharp while in some instances the camera would just go haywire. This is the same picture taken from the Agni 2 5 minutes apart and you can see how one is so drastically different from the other. Also, one funny thing I noticed is, there is no night mode in ultra-wide images for some reason. So, overall, the cameras on the Lava Agni 2 are not the most reliable. Compared with something like the Realme 11 pro, you can definitely get better output with the latter -- both during daytime and nighttime.

Video

Videos from it are average too. In 4K resolution, there is no stabilization at all and the footages have a weird color science. To solve that you can switch to either 2k or 1080p resolution. I prefer the sharpness and steadiness in 2K videos better! And the selfies videos are also not that good.

But how's the software?

Likewise, something else that the Lava Agni 2 needs fixing is the software. Don’t get me wrong, I found its stock Android experience with no bloatware to be quite refreshing, but there are certain aspects of its software that require an immediate fix. For instance, Its auto-brightness sensor just does not work well. It’s either always making the display too dim or too bright. Similarly, Always on Display has never worked on our usage period. Its camera shutter also casually stops working time and again. And although it has a clean Android experience, the lack of animations in certain parts of its UI makes it really boring to use. One other thing, for some strange reason, its fingerprint sensor gets too bright while you unlock the device. It’s not much of an issue during the daytime, but at night, it almost startles you which is very unpleasant! So, basically, it’s these little things that, hamper the overall user experience on the Agni 2. Yes, Lava has promised 2 years of OS and 3 years of quarterly security updates on this phone. Hence, I am guessing sooner or later these bugs will be resolved. But my point is, if a phone has so many things going wrong, the company should not wait around for a quarterly security update to fix it. Take Nothing for example, the company has been working so well to fix all the bugs and issues and that has earned a lot of consumer’s trust!

Battery Life

Lastly, its battery life is also not that great. On a single charge, the phone would give around 5 hours of screen time which is extremely average. In our experience, the major reason for that is, no 1, lack of better brightness management, no 2 even in the dynamic refresh rate option it doesn’t switch to 60Hz while playing videos, so it's not very optimized. And finally, the overnight battery drain here on average is about 5 to 6% which is quite high. So, I definitely see a lot of room for improvement regarding battery optimization. For charging, the 66-watt charger is bundled inside the box. It takes the phone from 0-100% in less than an hour, so no complaints on that part!

Lava Agni 2 Review: Conclusion

Okay, so my verdict of the Lava Agni 2 is that it definitely is an exciting device, one that has the right set of specs and price for the mass. But as of now, the company has got a lot of work to do behind the scene! First, they absolutely have to fix the stock and availability issue, and second, they got to listen to user feedback and reviews, and improve the experience!

Lava Agni 2 Review: Pros and Cons

Pros

• A well-packed specs for the Price
• Curved Display with Vividness
• Decent Performance from Dimensity 7050
• 66W Charger in the Box

Cons

• Average Low Light Camera Performance
• Auto Brightness issues and software bugs'
• Single Speaker