Normally, I don’t really write about products, but I’m making an exception here for a phone I bought recently. It’s not a paid review; I don’t know anyone at the company, and I have no incentive to write this except to share my experience with people who may find it useful.

I had to buy a new phone in a hurry because my older Nokia stopped working due to battery issues. It started swelling so much that the back panel popped out. Most people reading this are likely aware of the exploding pagers of Hezbollah by now. To cut a long story short, I wanted the new phone to have stock Android and cost no more than INR 30,000. This ruled out almost every single Chinese and Korean brand, and Apple was never really an option anyway. So that left me with very few options, and I ended up buying the Lava Agni 2. It’s an Indian brand priced at INR 17,000, and I bought the one with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. I’ve been using this phone for almost a month now, and here is my experience so far.

First, the good:

1. Android and Software Interface: The stock Android interface, with no bloatware and hopefully no spyware, is really quite good. It’s fast, responsive, and has no noticeable lag. If you like extra themes, skins, or icons, I guess those can be installed separately, but I haven’t tried that yet.
2. Build Quality: The phone has a premium feel to it, with nice curves, a high-quality back plate, and a comfortable grip.
3. Battery Life: While traveling, I listen to music, podcasts, or watch videos on mobile data for extended periods, and it easily lasts the full day without any issues. At home, it needs to be charged every 2-3 days, so pretty good so far.
4. Accessories: The phone came with a fast charger, cable, a transparent back cover, a USB-to-audio port converter dongle, and a SIM tray pin. The charger works quite well and doesn’t overheat like some low-quality types do.
5. USB Audio: I prefer using an audio port instead of a dongle or wireless. While we’re at it, this phone outputs analog audio signals over USB instead of digital. Phones that use the latter type of system require a special, usually more expensive dongle with a DAC built in, so this is another plus.
6. Camera: I initially considered listing this under the bad points but changed my mind while writing. To be fair, the cameras on this phone are not too bad and do a pretty decent job if you know how to use them properly. Most of my photography is done with my regular camera, and the phone is used only for quick photos when I don’t have it with me. The downside is that with default settings, pictures come out too saturated for my taste—similar to what you see when all the saturation, sharpness, and HDR sliders are cranked up. However, considering that most pictures on social media look like that, I guess many people will appreciate it. The camera hardware seems decent enough, and it can take fairly good pictures with the right settings and a non-stock application. For comparison, the picture quality and processing are much better than those of all Samsung, OnePlus, and similar brands in the INR 10,000 to 25,000 price range that I have tried.
7. Performance: The phone works well for all the applications I have on it, with no lag or crashes. I had to restart it once when it stopped taking screenshots, but apart from that, no issues yet. I don’t play mobile games, so I can’t comment on performance in that regard.
8. Packaging: Not a very important aspect, but I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the box and packaging are.
9. Calling: It’s ironic to mention this important feature so late, but there’s not much to say—calls work well with no issues. On a related note, spam call blocking works quite effectively. I’ve only had 3 spam calls get through in 3 weeks, which is pretty good considering I typically receive 3-6 spam calls daily.

Now, the bad:

1. No Memory Card Slot: Granted, 256 GB is not a small storage capacity, but I’d still prefer to have the option for a memory card.
2. No Audio Port: As mentioned above.
3. Curved Screen: Some people like it; I don’t. It also makes it harder to put a protector on it. I’ve been using it without one so far, with no issues. The curves on the screen are used for some fancy-looking notifications, which look nice, I guess.

Verdict: I was a bit hesitant before buying it, but I’m pretty happy after using it. For what it costs, the phone performs exceptionally well and in my opinion, better than most other phones in this category. There are plenty more features that I have not mentioned. For people interested in those, here are the links to the company’s website: Lava Mobiles and Amazon.