The recently launched Lava Blaze 2 5G looks like a decent sub-10K smartphone. You could find some really great features at this price point. From the first look, it comes off as a good-looking smartphone with an attractive back panel. You even get good cameras, for the price that Lava is asking. If we speak of the software and display on the other hand, they could be better. The smartphone even packs a big and trustworthy battery. If you’re looking for a 5G phone with decent specifications, the Lava Blaze 2 5G can be considered.
Lava’s latest offering, the Blaze 2 5G made it to the market in October as a sub-₹10K 5G smartphone. The brand launched the Blaze 2 5G in India at a price of ₹9,999. Now the question is if the Blaze 2 5G is worth purchasing. Or what are its USPs? I have two answers to these questions – It is one of the very few smartphones that offer 5G connectivity under ₹10,000. And the main USP of the Lava Blaze 2 5G is that it comes with a ‘Ring Light’, making its design distinctive and attractive at the same time.
I have used this smartphone for a couple of weeks now and here’s my review of the Lava Blaze 2 5G.
Lava’s major selling point for the Blaze 2 5G is its design. The brand has featured a ring light on the smartphone that can be used for notifications. It is surrounded by the camera module. Lava is saying that this is the ‘1st in the segment ring light’. However, I felt that this ring light was not that great. In pictures and videos, the ring light looks really attractive. However, in reality, if a person doesn’t know about it, he won’t be able to tell that it’s a ‘Light’. Its brightness is very dull and it looks like a blue round strip around the camera module when it turns on. This ring light can be used for notifications. Further, it also lights up when you are charging the smartphone.
Moving on, I really liked the overall design of the Blaze 2 5G. It comes with a glass back paired with a plastic mid-frame. I have the Glass Black variant of the smartphone and it really looks gothic but in a good sense. It has a capacitive power button and volume rockers on the right side of the panel. On the left, you’ll get a SIM tray. At the bottom of the panel, there is a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and speakers.
Moving to the back, there is an elevated circular camera module, which is not completely a camera module. This module consists of the signature ‘Ring Light’ along with a dual camera setup. At the bottom left of the panel, you will find the Lava 5G branding.
The Lava Blaze 2 5G is equipped with a 6.56-inch IPS LCD display. Sadly, Lava offers only an HD+ resolution with this display. Whereas, its competitors such as the Redmi 12 5G and Realme C53 offer an FHD+ resolution. In terms of brightness, the Blaze 2 5G is pretty decent as per the configuration. I ran the display tests on the Blaze 2 5G, which resulted in 429 nits of peak brightness.
Moreover, the display felt quite responsive as it supports a 90Hz refresh rate. Furthermore, the sharpness, however, is lacking in this smartphone because of the HD+ resolution.
In conclusion, the display of the Blaze 2 5G is doable. But it would have been better if it had an FHD+ resolution. However, it is not a very big problem if you don’t watch too much content on your smartphone.
The Lava Blaze 2 5G is powered by the Mediatek Dimensity 6020 processor. It is paired with up to 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. It also comes with one more configuration; 4GB RAM 64GB storage. Furthermore, the Blaze 2 5G runs on Android 13 Operating System.
In my opinion, it performs well while gaming. In 15 minutes of Call of Duty Mobile, the Blaze 2 5G didn’t lag in between and ran the game smoothly on high graphics. Since it only supports HD+ resolution, you will be able to play the game at up to ‘Medium’ graphics and ‘High’ Frame rate only.
However, it gets heated up a little while running performance-centric operations. But not so much that it would bother you.
Next, if you are a normal user who doesn’t go fancy with the smartphone, the Blaze 2 5G is quite good. While using basic applications such as Instagram, WhatsApp, payment apps, and more, the smartphone works fine.
While testing its performance, I ran some benchmark tests, and here are the results:
Coming to its OS, this really needs to be fixed in the Blaze 2 5G. The OS is still a little buggy, which leads to ‘non-responsive’ situations sometimes. I wouldn’t say it freezes the smartphone but it’s pretty much similar. For instance, I have been through situations where the smartphone stopped responding. It was not frozen as I could see the feedback of taps but it was not responding, that too just after setting up the smartphone, but this can be easily fixed with a software update.
The Lava Blaze 2 5G comes with a dual camera setup, holding a 50-megapixel primary camera and a 0.08-megapixel depth sensor. On the front, there is a 16-megapixel selfie shooter. The Blaze 2 5G can record up to 1440 pixels of video at 30 fps. Whereas, the Redmi 12 5G and Realme C53 only offer up to 1080 pixels of video at 30 fps.
I found the camera to be very good. If we talk about a sub-10K smartphone, then the Blaze 2 5G could be one of the top choices for photography.
Let’s talk about the front camera first. The 16-megapixel selfie shooter captures good images with decent details and vibrant colour. The portrait shots from the front camera also impressed me.
Moving to the primary camera, it also captures well-detailed images. However, the AI tuning of the images makes them way more colourful than required. Meaning the colours are not true but they still work for me.
The 2x digital zoom is also pretty good. As you can see in the picture samples, the normal and zoomed pictures are not very different. Both pictures have similar details and colours.
Next is the portrait mode. The back camera shoots really good portraits in daylight. It captures good details and doesn’t blur the borders of objects. But, in low light, the portrait mode is not very effective. In low light, there is a lot of smoothening on the portrait pictures.
Lastly, there is night photography. Let me tell you that there are two types of night photography. A, when there are lights in the frame, and B, when it’s completely dark. In the former case, the camera performs well, with good colours and good details. But when it’s completely dark, the smoothening steps in, which I don’t think anyone will like.
Speaking of its battery, I must say that it works brilliantly. It is packed with a 5000mAh battery that comes with an 18-watt fast charging support. It takes about 1.8 hours to charge from 0 to 100 percent. On a single charge, you can continuously use the smartphone for streaming for around 12 hours.
In terms of battery backup, the Blaze 2 5G performed quite well. I played Call of Duty: Mobile for 15 minutes and the battery dropped only 3 percent. Further, I used GPS for one hour and it resulted in only a 6 percent drop in battery.
To sum it all up, the Lava Blaze 2 5G is a decent smartphone in the sub-10k category. Even though there’s scope for improvement, you get some really great features for the price point. It is a good-looking smartphone with an attractive back panel. For the price, you even get good cameras. The OS and display, however, need improvements. And last but not least, the smartphone comes with a big and trustworthy battery. If your budget is around ₹10,000, then you can surely consider this smartphone if you’re looking for a 5G phone with a decent camera and battery.
