Lava Blaze 5G (Glass Blue, 6GB RAM, UFS 2.2 128GB Storage) | 5G Ready | 50MP AI Triple Camera | Upto 11GB Expandable RAM | Charger included | Clean Android (No Bloatware)

Affordable and good quality phone, photo quality is also good, smooth working

It’s been 7 days since I started using it. In this 1 week my experience with Lava Blaze 5G was more bad than good. Although it wasn’t worse as some might think. So, let’s start the review from where it needs to be.

Delivery and Unboxing- The package I received was really the worst in my entire life. There was only the amazon cardboard box but that’s it. It was very wore out, loose and completely opened from one side. On top of that there was no foam, bubble wrap or thermocol sheet at all to protect from accidental shocks or any damage. At first impression it felt like my package has been tampered but thankfully that’s not the case. I would request amazon to improve their packaging and I would like to ask about why their packaging quality got degraded over the years. I didn’t pay 12k rupees to just receive whatever garbage you can give me. It was an entire months hard earned money. When I started unboxing it everything was there safe and sound. Now I took a sigh of relief. What made me more happy was after setting up the phone I saw the battery was 56%. Every phone I bought till now used to have 49% or below. This is the first ever phone that gives 56% out of the box. Even more exciting thing was this phone gives clean Android with no bloatware and limited features too. But let me inform you that this is not Stock Android. It just uses Google apps and doesn’t have any mp3 player, video player or even a gallery of it’s own. I wonder if they really have to give only Google apps then they could’ve provided Google Gallery. Also Lava is using a custom skin but it was hidden so brilliantly that you can’t find it even if you wanted to. The customization features of Blaze 5G proved that.

Battery and Charging- 2nd thing about this phone that impressed me. After unboxing it I charged it upto 79% only and did normal tasks like watching Amazon prime, using Google, phone calls, SMS, WhatsApp etc and after 43 hours and 31 minute the battery was 14%. I really was shocked to see this. Imagine how much time it would take to fully deplete the battery. Also, what could’ve happened if I charged the phone to 100%. But let me tell you it’s not because of the enormous 5000mAh battery. This great backup is only because of Lava using Mediatek Dimensity 700 and how well they optimised the battery. Also the clean Android plays a huge role too as there are no apps that will suck the battery in background. Additionally, the 720x1600p display is also another reason for it as it will do less processing compared to a Full HD+ display. That’s why it will consume less power. But in gaming I will say it’s same as any other phone. Battery will deplete faster and it also depends on what games you play. They give you a 12W charger in the box but the Lava Customer Care confirmed me that Blaze 5G supports upto 15W charging. So if you already have a 15W charger in home you can easily fast charge it. The 12W charger takes more than 3 hours for charging 0 to 100%. Using a 15W charger will make it a bit faster. Expect upto 2 hours for fully charging with a 15W charger.

Display- This phone has a 6.52 inch, 720×1600 (HD+) 90Hz IPS LCD panel, 20:9 aspect ratio with ~269ppi. But don’t be disappointed by hearing the resolution numbers. I had seen IRL it feels same as any 1080p display. There is no pixelation, no sluggish-ness and picture quality is great. 90Hz refresh rate makes the phone feel very fast too. Also, the display is very clear in direct sunlight outside. In general the phone is somehow having more nits than anyone else. Just decrease your brightness to the lowest and you’ll see that Blaze 5G is still bright than other phones of any price you say. Now this was oddly satisfying to me.

CPU and Performance- This phone uses a Mediatek Dimensity 700, 6GB RAM and Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. I has been gaming on this phone since the day I received it and it really impressed me in gaming. I play Eversoul, Brawl Stars, T3 Arena, Asphalt 9, The 7 Deadly Sins Grand Cross, Sword Art Online: Integral Factor and Tasokare Hotel. Eversoul, Asphalt 9 and T3 Arena are actually heavy games and will make your phone heat in no time. They do lag on budget phones and perform badly. But playing these games on Blaze 5G was wonderful. They run really very smooth and have no lags, jitters or any frame drops at all and I play entire day but the temps of this phone never reached 40°. It reached maximum 36°-37° till now. I really loved how Lava worked on the thermals and it doesn’t warm at all and always stays at room temps. Let me tell you that just opening Eversoul makes my Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G overheat like crazy. It takes only 1-2 minute to get 58.9°. Yes, I switched to Lava Blaze 5G from a 37k S20 FE 5G and that too because of overheating, thermal throttling and even though S20 FE 5G is equipped with a Snapdragon 865 but it still lags while gaming. Some games has started crashing recently too on it. Thankfully Blaze 5G doesn’t have any issues and is very stable. I really loved Blaze 5G giving the option of virtual memory too. But let me tell you that virtual memory is only useful for devices under 4GB of RAM. It won’t be any helpful for 6GB and above RAM so I had disabled it after first boot. On top of that you will lose a chunk of your storage unnecessarily. I will suggest everyone to use your Blaze 5G with virtual memory disabled. The memory management in this phone has been another impressive thing. If you minimize the apps or games and open it after 30 minutes, it will resume from where you left and didn’t reload. Where my more expensive S20 FE 5G sometimes reloads the apps and games.

Audio- This phone gave me mixed feelings in the matter of audio. Playing music with YT music will feel something else, playing music with Google Files will make you feel something else and facebook, WhatsApp or YouTube will give another kind of feeling. Sometimes it can sound hollow, sometimes it will sound suppress but sometimes it will sound great. It depends on what app you’re using and if the music is a mp3 file or you’re streaming online. The presence of 3.5mm jack was really impressive too. You can use Bluetooth Neckband, TWS earbuds, 3.5mm earphones and Type-C earphones. I have used pTron Bassbuds Duo, KDM A-2 neckband and Core Type-C earphones. It support it all. A really great thing that you can’t get in 200k 300k rupees phone. I really enjoyed the multi support for audio. Otherwise the lack of 3.5mm jack is becoming very normal in budget phones too.

Camera- The photos and videos are exactly what made me hate this phone. This phone comes with Triple Camera AI Setup. Primary one is 50 Megapixels, 2nd module is a 2 Megapixels Macro and 3rd one is not mentioned anywhere but when I asked the Lava Customer Care they told me it is a 0.2 Megapixel VGA module. There is no depth sensor or telephoto lens. A lot of people will dislike this setup but it was good for me as I don’t use the telephoto very often. Both the photos and videos are very bad. Sharpness is what a budget phone will give you but there is no HDR, perfect white balance, and while shooting in broad daylight it will overexpose everything. It extremely overexposed my indoor lighting too and I use only 1 CFL bulb for each room. Take this statement as a fact that this camera module will overexpose even a single photon. Let alone broad daylight situation. The colors will be a bit washed out too. I took a photo of my Hero Sprint cycle which is red color but the photo was showing light red/orange-ish color. Software updates of Lava is like non-existent so no idea when we will receive one but these canera issues can be fixed by a software upgrade for sure. But let me tell you that even though Lava advertised Blaze 5G can shoot 2K EIS but that’s not the exact matter. You can use EIS in 480p recording too. I have done that and I still don’t know if it’s a bug or feature but I had shot footages of 480p non-eis, 480p eis, 720p non-eis, 720p eis, 1080p non-eis, 1080p eis, 1440p non-eis and 1440p eis. Glad they didn’t lock the EIS function to only 2K. I have attached all the photos so you can take a good look at how both the front and rear camera perform at day and night.

Connectivity- Again it impressed me and this time it was in the matter of connectivity. I have used both of my airtel 5G SIM AND THIS PHONE RUNS DUAL 5G 🤩🤩🤩 I was able to use mobile data from both of these SIM cards and I was getting the expected 5G speed. It also runs dual 4G and dual 3G too. Something that even the extremely high priced phones like Samsung S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 series and 15 series don’t provide at all but this Lava 5G did it and it really performs flawlessly. WiFi didn’t have any disconnection issues at all and the Bluetooth was able to transfer 4GB of data a little bit faster which I never expected. Lava has played some serious games here with the dual 5G and such capable Bluetooth module. Hotspot didn’t face any issues too. Sharing files over both hotspot and Nearby Share was flawlessly fast. Kudos to Lava for providing a connectivity that challenges phones (not so) worth of lakhs.

Final Verdict- So… Should you buy this phone or not? I will say yes and will recommend it but it also depends from person to person. It was very depressing to see that they don’t have any service center in Bhubaneswar, Odisha too. Thankfully they compensated this by providing home service so an agent of their will come to your home and will fix everything but if something serious is found, then they’ll take the device to service center. Overall this device outstands everything and I have seen a test where Blaze 5G beats S22 Ultra in 5G speed test. So undoubtedly a great device but it is having a huge headroom for improvements.

Thank you and have a nice day 😊

Affordable and good Phone in this price range. Screen and battery back up is good.