Over the years, Lava has carved out a decent market share in the entry-level and budget smartphone segment. Boldly wearing the ‘Made in India’ tag on its sleeve, Lava can offer highly competitive prices by manufacturing its smartphones locally. Its newest offering, Shark, is one of the most affordable 5G smartphones in India right now. It rocks a 6nm Unisoc T765 octa-core 5G chip under its hood and runs Android 15 out of the box. We used it for a week to find out if it really moves the needle in the entry-level smartphone segment. Here is our in-depth Lava Shark 5G review.
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In This Article
Lava Shark 5G Review: Design and Display
Here’s what you get inside Lava Shark 5G’s retail box:
- Smartphone
- 10W power adapter
- USB Type-A to Type-C cable
- Clear plastic cover
- SIM ejector tool
- Warranty card
Lava Shark 5G takes heavy design inspiration for its back panel from the iPhone 12. The two camera sensors are vertically stacked inside a square plastic module with rounded edges. The single LED flash is also placed in this cutout. The flat plastic back panel is glossy and easily registers smudges and fingerprints. We recommend putting the clear plastic cover provided in the box to use.
The plastic frame houses the volume rocker keys and the side button on its right edge. The side button also doubles as the fingerprint sensor. It is fast, snappy, and accurate. At the bottom lies the 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone, USB Type-C port, and speaker grille. The hybrid SIM tray is placed on left edge.
The 6.75-inch IPS LCD panel has a 90Hz refresh rate and is surrounded by sizeable bezels that get thicker around the chin. The selfie camera is housed in a waterdrop notch, which looks pretty dated. The display reaches an optimum brightness indoors, but struggles with legibility issues under direct sunlight. On the ‘bright’ side, its touch response is decent, and the browsing experience it offers is pretty good.
We used the Lava Shark 5G to stream content across multiple OTT platforms during the review period. The LCD panel, while not as punchy and vibrant as its AMOLED counterparts, provided a decent viewing experience. The images were balanced and detailed. While the colours did not pop out like they do on AMOLED displays, they didn’t fall completely flat either. The sound quality from the single, bottom-firing speaker was surprisingly good, but it wasn’t loud enough to sufficiently overcome the background noise of the ceiling fan.
Lava Shark 5G Review: Performance and Cameras
Lava Shark 5G is powered by the Unisoc T765 processor. This octa-core chipset is built on a 6nm process. The smartphone is available in a single 4GB RAM + 64GB storage variant, priced at Rs 7,999. With a microSD card, the storage of this device can be expanded up to 1TB. The ‘Expanded Memory’ feature allows the user to boost the RAM of the device by another 4GB. The device does this by using free ROM space.
On the Geekbench 6 app, the Lava Shark 5G scored 739 points in the single-core test and 1,900 points in the multi-core test. The smartphone does a good job of handling routine tasks like calling, instant messaging, web browsing, and media streaming. We did encounter some odd issues (like the phone being unable to launch Google Chrome until it was restarted), but they were few and far between. Apps did take some time to load, and multitasking proved to be a demanding ask at times, but that is something to be expected from an entry-level device.
Lava Shark 5G can run games like Call of Duty Mobile, but he gameplay is not up to the mark. For starters, the touch response of the LCD panel isn’t smooth enough to keep up with the demanding action of first-person shooter games. Additionally, frame drops are all too common on this device. However, games like Candy Crush Saga are handled quite well.
Handling the OS duties on this smartphone is stock Android 15 OS. While this isn’t the full version that you get on midrange and flagship devices, it is perfectly suited for this phone as it is light and breezy. Everything from screen transitions to the app opening and closing animations is well optimised. You get a good set of customisation options for the home screen and lock screen. The user experience becomes much smoother with smart gestures offered by the OS. To top it off, there is absolutely no bloatware on this device.
With a massive 5,000mAh battery pack to power us through the day, we did not experience any battery anxiety while using the Lava Shark 6G during the review period. The smartphone did not have any trouble lasting a day of heavy use on a full charge. With over 5 hours of screen time at the end of the day, we were left with a 20% charge in the tank. Even though the smartphone supports 18W wired charging, it ships with a 10W adapter in the box. It took us almost 2 hours to fully charge the smartphone.
Entry-level smartphones aren’t known for their camera systems, but the Lava Shark 5G performs well in this regard. The 13MP rear camera takes decent pictures in outdoor daylight conditions. These images showcase good colours and dynamic range. While they aren’t as sharp as images taken with a midrange device, they are still passable. However, in limited lighting conditions, this camera really struggles to produce good results. The Night Mode doesn’t do much to improve things either. The images are dark, gloomy, and very noisy.
The portrait shots taken by the primary shooter are bright and colourful, but they do lack focus and background blur. If you want good portraits from your smartphone’s camera, you will need to expand your budget. The 5MP front-facing camera takes decent selfies, but they are visibly soft. On top of that, the smartphone applies skin-smoothing effects to selfies, which we don’t like. This camera can record 1,080p, 720p, and 480p videos at 30fps. Meanwhile, the rear camera can shoot 4K, 1,080p, and 720p videos at 30fps.
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Verdict
The Lava Shark 5G is a good, reliable option at Rs 8,000. Its flat form factor and clean design give it the appearance of a premium smartphone. However, the waterdrop notch on the display feels dated. The media-streaming experience is the biggest asset of this device. The display is bright and vibrant, with a smooth response rate to boot. While the multitasking performance of the device may be a bit iffy, it does a good job of handling everyday tasks like calling, texting, and web browsing. The images taken by the primary shooter in optimum lighting conditions aren’t too bad either. To tie things up nicely, the 5,000mAh battery pack offers an all-day battery life on this device.
Lava Shark 5G: Pros
- Clean design
- Big display for streaming movies and TV shows
- Good battery life
- No bloatware
Lava Shark 5G: Cons
- Waterdrop notch for selfie camera
- Night photography is not up to the mark
