India’s homegrown tech outfit, Lava, is back with a new instalment in its Agni series. After trying an experimental second display on the Agni 3 (our review here), the company has gone back to the basics with its new offering. The Agni 4 rocks a new design, a brighter display, and a more powerful Dimensity 8350 processor running at its core. Moderately priced at Rs 25,000, it will give a lot of phones in its segment a run for their money. We used it as our daily driver for a week, putting it through a series of tests. Here is our comprehensive review of the Lava Agni 4.
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In This Article
Lava Agni 4 Review: Design and Display
Here’s what you get inside Lava Agni 4’s retail box:
- Smartphone
- 66W power adapter
- USB-C to USB-C cable
- Clear plastic cover
- SIM ejector
- Service card
Lava’s new design philosophy for its ‘Agni’ series is an exciting one. Gone is the secondary display on the back panel – sacrificed for a cleaner, more premium look. The glass back panel has a smooth matte finish. The oval camera island is aligned towards the centre, causing no wobble whatsoever. The two camera sensors lie on either end of this cutout, with the ‘AGNI’ lettering and a sleek flash bar in the middle. Overall, the smartphone exudes a clean look and has a splendid in-hand feel – something you’d expect from a flagship device.
The glass back panel curves ever so gently towards the flat aluminium frame. This frame has rounded corners. Its right edge houses the volume rocker, side button, and a new ‘Action’ key. The single-press, double-press, and long-press actions for this key are completely customisable. It is positioned towards the bottom of the device, which is something we like because it fosters a more natural hand position when you use it as a shutter button. At the bottom of the frame lie the SIM tray, primary microphone, USB-C slot, and primary speaker. The secondary speaker, noise-cancelling microphone, and IR blaster are placed up top.
The 6.67-inch AMOLED display is one of Agni 4’s biggest assets. It has a 120Hz refresh rate and can reach a peak brightness of 2,400 nits. We did not face any legibility issues while using the device under direct sunlight. The touch response is very fluid and smooth. The bezels surrounding the display are slim and uniform. The optical fingerprint scanner under the display, while not as fast as its ultrasonic counterparts, does the job quite well.
We used the Lava Agni 4 as our primary media streaming device during the review period, streaming content across OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, and JioHotstar. The 1.5K AMOLED display produced detailed visuals packed with vibrant colours. The deep blacks and punchy contrast are a big step up from an ordinary LCD panel. While the viewing experience is top-notch, the stereo speaker setup is a bit of a letdown. The boxy audio output is something that Lava needs to sort out in its next Agni iteration.
Lava Agni 4 Review: Performance and Cameras
At the heart of the Lava Agni 4 lies the MediaTek Dimensity 8350 chipset. The device is equipped with 8GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB UFS 4.0 storage. There are no other storage options on offer.
Here’s how the smartphone performed in the Geekbench 6 test.
- Single-core: 1,462 points.
- Multi-core: 4,536 points.
As the benchmark numbers suggest, the Agni 4 goes through routine tasks like a hot knife through butter. While daily driving the device, we did not come across a single issue while performing tasks like calling, instant messaging, media streaming, web browsing, and navigation. The UFS 4.0 storage configuration ensures that apps take no time to load. The LPDDR5X RAM is pretty fast as well, juggling multiple apps without breaking a sweat. Our only complaint lies with the blunt vibrational feedback produced by the haptic motor. It feels a smidge cheap on an otherwise premium device.
The gaming performance of the Agni 4 is quite underrated. Lava does not market it as a gaming phone, but it can hang with the best of them. We were able to play Call of Duty Mobile at 90fps with low graphics settings. Pushing the graphics to their highest settings meant contending with a 60fps frame rate. This wasn’t an issue for us, as the gameplay delivered by the device was smooth and consistent. Annoying lags and frame drops were nowhere to be seen. The 4,300mm² 3D VC liquid cooling system was able to dissipate the internal heat and keep the device cool during long gaming sessions. In our testing, the back panel started to warm up after the 30-minute mark.
OS duties on the Agni 4 are handled by Android 15 out of the box. This is a strange choice since Android 16 has been out for a while at this point. It has been promised 3 major OS upgrades and 4 years of security patches. The Android 16 update is not available for this device yet.
The overall software experience is clean and free of bloatware apps. However, it could use more optimisation and some finishing touches. For starters, the animations and cards could use more smoothness. Their jagged movement takes away from the browsing experience. On top of that, Lava needs to put more work into the font style. The lettering in the settings menu and certain dialogue boxes feels very basic.
You get a few useful AI features on this device. Lava’s Vayu AI chatbot has useful agents like Math and English teachers. The AI image editor can also be found in this section. It does a good job of removing unwanted objects from images and taking cues from the background to fill up the space that’s left behind. We also like the cute pet avatar on the home page. Long-pressing this avatar lets you input voice queries. A double-tap takes you to Vayu AI. Apart from AI features, Lava has a suite of Outdoor Toolbox with useful tools like Height Meter, Compass, Gradienter, Flashlight, Magnifier, Protractor, and more.
The Agni 4 packs a 5,000mAh Li-Po battery under its hood. While it isn’t as big as its Si/C counterparts, it offers a standard 1-day battery life. Our average screen time on the device was between 5 and 6 hours. We ended each day with ~20% charge in the tank. The 66W power adapter provided in the box can fully charge the phone in just over 50 minutes.
The rear camera panel houses a 50MP primary shooter and an 8MP ultrawide lens. Lava has ditched the 8MP telephoto lens from the Agni 3. Up front, a 50MP selfie camera is placed inside a punch-hole cutout on the display.
The 50MP primary shooter captures good pictures in outdoor daylight conditions. The images showcase vibrant colours, sharp contrast, and good dynamic range. It isn’t the best sensor in the segment when it comes to capturing details, but the colour profile makes up for it. In limited lighting conditions, the Night Mode does a decent job of lighting up the shot and reducing the noise, but the images look a bit overexposed.
Portrait shots taken by the primary shooter are vibrant and well-focused. The smartphone adds a tasteful background blur in these shots. However, it tends to blur the edges of the subject at times. This isn’t a deal breaker for us, as the overall shots are well composed.
The 8MP ultrawide lens takes decent shots in outdoor daylight conditions. The images are softer than the ones taken with the primary shooter, but the colour profile is consistent for the most part. In limited lighting conditions, the Night Mode is able to light up the shot, but the images are visibly grainy.
The 50MP front-facing camera takes clear selfies. The images are clear and detailed. However, the smartphone tends to smooth the skin tone of the subject in the processing stage. It carries out tone correction as well, but not at the expense of the selfie looking artificial. The front-facing camera and primary shooter can record 4K videos at 30 and 60fps. Meanwhile, the ultrawide camera can record 1,080p footage at 30fps.
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Verdict
Lava Agni 4 is the dark horse of its segment. It may not get the plaudits it deserves, but it will certainly carve a niche of loyal users for itself. In many ways, it feels like Lava’s statement piece. The clean design language, coupled with smart craftsmanship, makes this device punch above its weight. It looks and feels like a premium product – something we don’t get to say about the phones in this segment.
The charming aesthetics are matched with a rock-solid performance. The Dimensity 8350 SoC is super reliable when it comes to everyday tasks. The consistent and smooth gameplay offered by this device deserves a shout-out as well. The 6.77-inch AMOLED display is smooth, responsive, and snappy. The cameras, while not the best in the segment, put up a good performance in outdoor daylight conditions.
While the Agni 4 checks all of the important boxes, Lava still has some work to do when it comes to software experience. For starters, its most premium offering should run the latest Android OS version. Additionally, the software needs to be perfectly optimised for a fluid browsing experience. This means better transitions, animations, and visual effects. Lastly, Lava needs to polish and garnish its add-ons and customisations. Even something trivial like the font style of the text in a dialogue box can seem off-putting if it isn’t executed perfectly.
Pros
- Clean design
- Great build quality
- Bright display
- Good processor
Cons
- Poor haptic feedback
- Boxy audio output
- Software needs more polishing
