Lava's Agni series has been two of its best settling smartphones in the market that also helped the company forge its way back into the smartphone space a couple of years back. Now, the Agni 3 takes a bit of a different route with an extra display at the back and an added physical button on the side. Does the phone, at the base price Rs 20,000, have enough to take on the likes of OnePlus and Realme? Let's try and check:
The device is mainly made of plastic that doesn't feel cheap in the hand and has a matte finish to it so there's not too many smudges and fingerprints seen on it frequently. It has curved corners and the sides are made of alloy, and feels decent in the hand, not very premium but not something I would complain about. Weighing about 212 grams, the phone feels just about what you would expect for its size.
On the right side, you have the Action key, the power/lock key at the middle; while the left side carries the volume buttons on the upper half. The buttons are quite narrow and could have had a little more tactile for pressing and getting sufficient feedback that one has been pressed. At the bottom, you've the dual SIM card tray, primary mic, USB type C ports and one outlet for the loudspeakers; and the top carries the other outlet for speakers and the secondary mic.
Checking out the phone's back, that's where things get a little more interesting with a 1.74-inch AMOLED display tucked right next to the triple rear camera system on a big rectangular cutout. On this display, you can check notifications, use it as a display for taking selfie shots with the rear camera or just pet the dog or cat that's been set as a screen saver for it. I didn't find it particularly useful for anything else during my usage, but some may find it a unique part about it, too.
The device features a 6.78-inch (1200x2652) curved AMOLED with support for up to 120Hz refresh rates. The display in place here is not bad at all. I wouldn't say it's better than what OnePlus' Nord and Realme have been using for their offerings around the price point, but it can handle high resolution videos in terms of details and colour rendering well enough.
Coming to the triple camera system, you get a 50MP (f/1.9) main camera, an 8MP (f/2.5) telephoto camera, and an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide camera. Decent camera hardware in place, the image tuning does leave a bit on the table. You can expect to get clear shots outdoors in daylight, but as the scene becomes even slightly less suitable, with indoor lighting, or dim lighting conditions outdoors, the camera performance isn't very impressive.
The front-facing 16MP (f/2.0) camera is quick to load and capture, with decent dynamic range shown for selfie shots and suitable for video calls. The device is powered by MediaTak's 7300 chipset (up to 2.5Ghz octa core processor, Mali G-615 MC2 GPU) with 8GB LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB (or 128GB) UFS3.1 internal storage. The phone runs on near-stock Android 14 OS with a very additions made by Lava (and September security patch in place).
There are barely any third party apps pre-installed and no promotional notifications or ads pushed. You can configure the Action key to take a screenshot, open camera or open an installed app, with a single or dual tap or even a long-tap. The OS has no option to set the back button on the left side when you have buttons enabled (instead of gestures), which is a little odd miss. The day to day performance of the phone is satisfactory with the phone handling watching YouTube videos, checking photos, scrolling through social media apps and having music playing in the background without much trouble. You can expect to play a game like Monument Valley just fine while heavier games like Wuthering Waves can be played at low to medium settings.
Equipped with a 5,000mAh battery unit, I found the phone to last a whole day with about 10-15 per cent remaining for most of the time. It can be charged from 1 per cent to full using the bundled 66 watts charger in just over an hour without any heating issues to report. Notably, Lava also offers the phone without a charger in the box with a deduction of Rs 1,000 compared to when bought with a charger in the box.
Call quality, GPS and Wi-Fi reception on the phone is top notch for the price tag, and 5G reception was also not bad with decent experience for latching on to 5G when used as a Wi-Fi hotspot several times. The loudspeakers on the phone are fine but not that great in terms of their depth when watching videos or playing games.
All in all, the Lava Agni 3 is a well-performing phone when it comes to the display and battery life. While its software and general performance is satisfactory, the camera quality is a bit of a let-down. That mini display at the back doesn't seem a whole lot useful but some may still find it a nice little addition.