Lava’s newest entry-level offering is priced at Rs 10,000. At this price point, it faces tough competition from the likes of Poco M7, iQOO Z10 Lite, Redmi 14C, and other affordable 5G phones. The Blaze Dragon has a large 6.75-inch display and rocks the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset under its hood. There’s a respectable 50MP primary shooter onboard as well. We used the device for a week to find out if it’s worth the Rs 10,000 price tag. If you’re on the fence about buying the Lava Blaze Dragon 5G, this review will help you make up your mind.
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In This Article
Lava Blaze Dragon 5G Review: Design and Display
Before we talk about the design of this phone, let’s take a look at what you get inside its retail box:
- Smartphone
- Power adapter
- USB Type-A to Type-C cable
- Clear plastic cover
- SIM ejector
- Service card
The Blaze Dragon’s design is clean and simple. The flat plastic back panel has a smooth finish that keeps smudges and fingerprints at bay. The glossy camera panel is positioned in the top-left section. It houses two cutouts – one for the 50MP primary shooter and the other for an auxiliary lens. The LED flash is placed adjacent to the main sensor. The ‘LAVA 5G’ lettering is embossed at the bottom.
The plastic frame houses the hybrid SIM tray on its left edge. This tray has room for a micro SD card. The storage is expandable up to 512GB. On the right lies the volume rocker and the side button. This side button also doubles as the fingerprint sensor. The 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port, and speaker grille are placed on the bottom edge.
The 6.75-inch LCD panel has a 120Hz refresh rate. It offers a decent touch response and a fluid browsing experience. This display can reach 450 nits of brightness. In an indoor environment, it gets bright enough to maintain legibility. However, it struggles to overcome the surrounding brightness in an outdoor, sunny environment. The bezels surrounding the display get thicker around the chin. The front-facing camera lies in a waterdrop notch, which feels quite dated.
We used this smartphone as our primary media streaming device during the week-long review period. Its 720 x 1,612p display did a fine job of relaying crisp, vivid visuals across all the major OTT platforms. While the depth of the colour profile wasn’t as intense as AMOLED displays, this LCD panel held up quite well. We were also pleased to notice that the bottom-firing speaker did not produce a boxy output. However, since this is the only speaker on the device, it did not reach an optimum loudness level.
Lava Blaze Dragon 5G Review: Performance and Cameras
At the heart of the smartphone lies the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 SoC. This is a pretty respectable chipset in this price bracket. It has an internal storage capacity of 128GB (UFS 3.1). There are 2 RAM (LPDDR4X) variants on offer:
- 4GB: Rs 9,998
- 6GB: Rs 10,999
Here’s how the smartphone performed in Geekbench 6 and AnTuTu 3D Lite benchmarks.
- Geekbench 6: 906 (single-core) | 2,003 (multi-core)
- AnTuTu 3D Lite: 578,859
One of the biggest assets of this smartphone is how smooth and fluid it is in general use. This is something that’s quite rare in entry-level devices. Tasks like calling, messaging, emailing, media streaming, and navigation are handled expertly. Juggling multiple apps at once does not cause any annoying stutters either. Our only complaint lies with the haptic motor, which produces blunt feedback. We recommend limiting the vibrational feedback to calls only.
Budget phones aren’t usually adept at gaming. The Blaze Dragon is decent at handling titles like Free Fire Max. We kept the graphics at their medium settings and were able to get sustained 60fps gameplay. The overall gaming experience was free of frame drops, but the gap in graphics compared to a midrange device is clearly visible. The device starts warming up after 20 minutes of continuous gameplay.
OS duties on this smartphone are handled by stock Android 15. This is a limited version of Android that’s designed and optimised for budget phones. It is lightweight and snappy. The interface is clean and free of bloatware. You get a good set of customisation options for the home page, lock screen, app icons, charging animation, and other design elements. If you need an extra bit of speed, you can virtually expand the RAM by another 4GB. The does this by allocating some of the internal storage space to the RAM.
The 5,000mAh battery pack on this device puts up a good display. You can get a one-day battery life out of this phone even with heavy usage. If you limit your usage to essential tasks, you can extend the battery life to 2 days. The battery pack supports 18W wired charging. Using the charger provided in the box, it takes up to 2 hours to reach the 100% mark.
The rear camera array on this phone comprises a 50MP primary shooter and an auxiliary lens. The latter doesn’t really see any action and is solely there for cosmetic purposes. The 8MP selfie camera is housed inside a waterdrop notch.
The 50MP main camera takes good images in outdoor daylight conditions. The pictures pack the essential details and showcase balanced colours. The sharpness and dynamic range leave more to be desired. In limited lighting conditions, the smartphone struggles to artificially illuminate the subject, and the shots appear quite gloomy. This is an issue that affects all entry-level smartphones, and not just the Blaze Dragon.
The portrait shots taken by the main sensor are vibrant and well-focused. The smartphone does a decent job of separating the subject from the background. However, the background blur in the portraits is almost non-existent. Selfies taken with the 8MP front-facing camera are on the softer side, but we like their colour profile. The smartphone doesn’t mess with the skin tone, but it does smooth the texture. The front and rear cameras can record 1,080p videos.
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Verdict
If you’re looking for a reliable everyday 5G smartphone on a tight budget, the Blaze Dragon is a very easy recommendation from us. The Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset breathes life into this device and makes it one of the best performers in the price bracket. It can juggle multiple tasks without throwing any hiccups. It can also deliver smooth gameplay at medium graphics. On top of that, you can push its battery life to 2 days on conservative usage. The camera quality is on par for the segment. You won’t be disappointed with the daytime shots. We can safely say that Lava has a winner on its hands with this smartphone.
Pros
- Big display
- 5G connectivity
- Respectable processor
Good battery life
Cons
- Slow charging
