Lava Blaze Curve 5G Review in New Lava that impresses with its display, design and performance!

Indian brand ‘Lava’ launched the Blaze Curve 5G smartphone earlier this month. After using it for about a month, I have no hesitation in writing that ‘Lava’ is trying hard to regain its lost ‘shine’ and it seems that the company has the strength to do so. In the under Rs 20 thousand category, elements like curved AMOLED display, premium design make Blaze Curve 5G stand out from the crowd. But the real challenge for ‘Lava’ is Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Realme, Vivo, Oppo. Can Lava Blaze Curve 5G win people’s hearts? Let’s find out in this review.

Lava Blaze Curve 5G : Price in India

Two variants of Lava Blaze Curve 5G smartphone have been launched. The price of 8GB + 128GB model is Rs 17,999. The price of 8GB + 256GB model is Rs 18,999. The sale of the phone started from March 11. It can be purchased from Lava E-store, Amazon and retail stores. The phone has been brought in Viridian and Iron Glass colors.

Lava Blaze Curve 5G : Design and Display

We reviewed the Iron Glass model of the Lava Blaze Curve 5G. The design of the phone has the ability to ‘win hearts’ and gives the device a premium and attractive look. Its back has tough glass, which has a matte finish and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The company claims that this phone can protect itself from breaking if dropped. We did not drop the phone, but it felt solid. Fingerprints do not appear on the matte finish, which eliminates the chances of the phone getting dirty without a cover. As I wrote in the first impression, when viewed from the back side, the finish of this phone is similar to Vivo X50 Pro. That phone was launched 3 years ago in the price category of Rs 50 thousand and Lava Blaze Curve 5G is offering the same premium finish for Rs 17,999.

I did not see any vulgarity in the design of Blaze Curve 5G. There is a decent branding of LAVA 5G at the bottom. Three camera bumps are carved in triangle shape at the top, in which 3 rear cameras are fitted and LED flash is given separately.

The power button and volume rocker are on the right side of the phone. Their positioning was fine for me. During use, it never happened that the finger went on the volume rocker instead of the power button. The left part of the phone is empty. Type-C port, SIM tray, microphone are available at the bottom. There are two stereo speakers at the top and bottom. They support Dolby Atmos. With this combination, the speakers generate good sound, but the sound starts to tear a bit at full volume.

There is no 3.5mm headphone jack in this phone. To make up for this deficiency, a USB Type-C connector is provided in the box. Another thing that is missing is the option to insert an SD card. Its lack can be felt in the 128 GB variant. A 33-watt charger, C-type data cable, SIM ejector tool and TPU cover are also available in the box.

The four corners of the Blaze Curve 5G are curved, that is, it is a device with curved edges. The phone grips the hand and does not slip easily. The weight of 189 grams puts it in the category of lightweight devices. There is no problem in using it with one hand. The frame of the phone is glossy and matches the design.

The curved display of the Blaze Curve 5G makes the phone look sleek. The punch hole at the top of the display is small. The display chin is thin, due to which the screen covers the entire phone. The design of Blaze Curve 5G is a direct message to Chinese companies that now Indian brands also have the power to give premium design in the mid-range and Lava is no less in this matter.

Now talking about the display of the phone, Blaze Curve 5G has a 6.67-inch Full HD Plus AMOLED display. Its resolution is 1080×2400 pixels and refresh rate is 120Hz. By giving a curved display, Lava has introduced Blaze Curve 5G as a trendy device. Sharp and punchy colors emerge in the screen.

However, the peak brightness could have been more than 800 nits. Many times it was difficult to see the visuals while using in sunlight. There was no problem in indoor use. Due to 120Hz refresh rate, the eyes feel smooth during scrolling. According to me, it would be better to keep the refresh rate in auto mode, it saves battery. I read e-papers on this device for about a month. Watched YouTube videos. The experience was good. Blaze Curve 5G also has Widevine L1 certification, which means online content can be watched in the best resolution on OTT apps like Netflix. I watched 2 episodes of ‘Lootere’ on Disney Hotstar and the display of Blaze Curve 5G satisfied me. Its ‘in-display fingerprint sensor’ unlocks the device quickly. It would have been better if its placement was a little higher in the display. There are almost no smartphones with curved display under Rs 20,000 and Lava can take the lead over others on this basis.

Lava Blaze Curve 5G : Specifications and Software

Lava Blaze Curve 5G is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 7050 processor. The review unit I got had 8GB LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB storage. The RAM could be expanded up to 8GB using the phone’s free storage. Connectivity options include 5G, 4G, Bluetooth 5.2, FM radio, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax Wi-Fi6, OTG support, along with accelerometer, ambient light sensor, magnetometer, and proximity sensor.

The Lava Blaze Curve 5G smartphone runs on a UI based on the Android 13 operating system. It is a bit old in the era of Android 14, but offers a stock Android experience. You can also understand it like this that in other smartphones, their custom OS works on Android, whereas Google’s pure Android works in Blaze Curve 5G. Because of this, unnecessary ads and push notifications do not come. There is no hassle of bloatwallet. Lava’s apps were also installed very less and the phone felt like my own. The company has promised to provide 2 Android upgrades and security updates for 3 years. This means that Android 14 and the OS after that will also come in this phone.

The biggest feature of pure Android is that it is easy to understand and run. There are many shortcuts, which makes the task quick. I liked the feature of Always On Display. With this, I was able to see the notifications apart from the time, date and battery percentage without unlocking the phone. This phone also has dual app support for WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, that is, 2 WhatsApp can be run simultaneously in Lava Blaze Curve 5G.

Lava Blaze Curve 5G : Performance, Battery

Lava Blaze Curve 5G has MediaTek Dimensity 7050 processor. The review unit we got has 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage. Before talking about the performance, it is important to know that devices like realme 12, realme Narzo 70 Pro, OPPO F25 Pro, OPPO Reno11, Lava Agni 2 5G are available in the market with this MediaTek processor and in terms of price, Lava Blaze Curve 5G and Lava Agni 2 5G are the ‘cheapest’. That is, this Lava phone competes with smartphones in the range of 20 to 30 thousand rupees.

Blaze Curve 5G gave decent performance during everyday tasks. From medium to heavy usage, Blaze Curve 5G did not disappoint. Although this is not a gaming-centric device, I was still able to play my favourite game ‘Bus Simulator’ on high settings. There were some frame drops but the overall gaming experience was good. Apart from ‘Bus Simulator’, I also played Asphalt-9. There were some frame drops in that too. After 20 to 25 minutes of continuous gaming, the phone got a little warm, but that heating can be ignored.

Lava Blaze Curve 5G box and its contents.

The phone worked smoothly in daily use. I watched OTT content while several social media apps were running in the background, there was no lag. Apps were opening and closing quickly. This phone can handle the load of 8 to 10 tabs on Google Chrome.

Talking about benchmark scores, the Lava Blaze Curve 5G scored 1077 and 2587 points respectively in Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core tests. The result in single core was equal to Honor 90. At the same time, it got a score of 577751 in AnTuTu (v10).

Keeping the processor in mind, I also ran some GPU-based tests in Lava Blaze Curve 5G. In GFXBench’s T-rex, Manhattan 3.1 and Car Chase tests, it achieved 60fps, 41fps and 23fps respectively. In the 3D Mark Wild Life test, the device scored 2338.

The battery performance of the Lava Blaze Curve 5G is also strong. The 5000mAh battery lasted for a day with heavy use. By heavy use I mean about 40 minutes of gaming, a few hours of social media use throughout the day, about an hour of reading news websites on Chrome and 2 episodes of a web series on OTT. If you do a lot of gaming and use the internet, then you may have to charge the phone before the end of the day. In our HD video loop test, the battery of the Blaze Curve 5G lasted 19 hours and 30 minutes, which can be called strong.

The company is providing a 33W charger in the box of Blaze Curve 5G. If a little more output was available here, then the smartphone would have gone one step further on the way to becoming an all-rounder. However, the 33W charger also charges this phone from 0 to 100% in about one and a half hours.

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Lava Blaze Curve 5G : Cameras

Cameras are the peak point of any smartphone and I found the camera results of Lava Blaze Curve 5G to be average. There are 3 cameras on the back side of the phone. The main sensor is 64 megapixels along with an 8MP ultrawide camera and a 2-megapixel macro camera with LED flash.

The main camera does not take pictures in 64MP resolution by default. Its option is available in the ‘More’ option in the camera app. If a shortcut was available on the main screen here, some steps could have been saved. The pictures taken in both these options seemed average to me. The pictures taken during the day were good at first glance, but the lack of details was visible.

The photos taken in 64MP resolution can be zoomed far, but the pixels start bursting. However, the colors were being captured well in the pictures. The 8MP ultrawide camera covers a field of view of 120 degrees, but the sharpness in the pictures is less and the colors also become a bit faded. I had to put in a lot of effort to take macro shots. The results were blurred even on objects that were moving a little, such as flowers etc., but macro shots taken on stable objects showed details.

This is a photo taken in 64MP resolution. Its size has been reduced during uploading.

A normal daytime photo taken in photo mode.

An evening photo taken in photo mode.

Portrait photos were captured well in daylight. The phone also has a night mode option for night photos, but it falls short in serving details. Videos can be shot in 4K 30FPS from the back camera. It sounds good, but the results were average, especially the lack of stabilization was felt.

Photo taken in portrait mode.

Wide angle image covering a field of view of 120 degrees.

Two pictures taken in the evening in photo mode.

Lava Blaze Curve 5G has a 32MP selfie camera, which can be an important selling point of this phone. Compared to the back cameras, it impressed me. The best thing is that it does not bring pretentiousness to the face and captures the skin in the same tone as you look. However, for those who want to make themselves look beautiful, there is an option of beauty mode, which can make the face glowing and smooth.

Two selfie images. First – in photo mode, second in face beauty mode.

Talking about other camera options, the facility of HDR and AI is also available in the camera app. It is important to mention AI. When you take photos with this option, you can see the difference in the results. The picture looks a little better. The rear camera has the facility of up to 10X digital zoom. 2X zoom is also available on choosing the 64MP option. Along with the rear cameras, there is a Face Beauty option in the camera app, which has the power to make the users beautiful.

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Lava Blaze Curve 5G: Verdict

The specifications that Lava has given in Blaze Curve 5G make it a good value for money option in terms of price. For less than Rs 18,000, curved AMOLED display, decent design, good performance and long battery life are the best parts of this phone. The cameras could have been better, but the photography needs of a common user will be easily met. In the era of 5G, this smartphone from Lava proves to be a perfect challenge for Chinese companies. For those who have a tight budget and need a good-looking, curved display phone and also want to do a little gaming, Blaze Curve 5G can be a good option for them.