| 1.5K Curved AMOLED | Android 14 | 8MP Telephoto | 120Hz |
| MediaTek Dimensity 7300X | 1.74" Mini Display | IP64 | 5,000mAh |
When you hear about a smartphone with two displays, you probably think of a foldable. Well not this time! This is the Lava Agni 3 and it has two displays, but without the fragile nature or the hefty price tag of a foldable.
Plus, it is one of the very few phones which are fully designed and engineered in India. Can it hold its own against those competitive Chinese offerings?
First up, props to Lava for providing a premium unboxing experience with the Agni 3. It comes in a well-designed box with a magnetic flap, which feels pretty special. But, we must warn you that the base variant of this phone does not come bundled with a charger, so it is best to skip that.
One of the key highlights is their free phone replacement policy. If there’s a hardware failure within a year, Lava claims that they’ll replace the phone entirely, which is pretty cool and gives some peace of mind.
Hold the Agni 3 in your hand, and what immediately grabs your attention is that massive camera window at the back. One side of it has the camera, and the other side has a 1.74-inch AMOLED mini display.
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If this layout rings some bells in your head, then let us remind you that this is inspired by the Mi 11 Ultra from a few years ago. Although the Mi 11 Ultra was an expensive flagship phone, this is a mid-ranger.
This mini display basically works like a cover display on a flip-style foldable. You can customise it in the settings, like turning on the Always On Display feature to show time, battery percentage, and even charging animations.
Through dedicated widgets, you can access voice recording, set alarms, start a stopwatch, or control music right from there. If you want to use it with the camera, you can get a preview of what you're shooting and take better selfies or videos using the main camera.
You can argue that this is still a gimmick, but we find it much more useful than the Glyph interface on Nothing phones. You know, it’s way easier to get information from a display than from flashing LEDs.
Turn the phone around, and you get a 6.78-inch curved AMOLED screen with a 1.5K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The brightness can go up to 1200 nits, which is great for outdoor use.
Indoors, the screen looks vibrant and bright, with 10-bit colour and WIdevine L1 support. Watching videos on this display, especially HDR content, is a pleasant experience.
You get Dolby Atmos rated dual stereo speakers with a good level of loudness. Aesthetically, the Agni 3 is quite a pleasing phone, primarily due to that large camera window and this Fold 6-like Heather Glass colour. However, it is pretty thick and heavy at 8.8mm and 212g, despite it having only a standard-sized 5,000mAh battery.
On the right side of this phone there are two buttons. The lower one is the power button, and the upper one is what Lava calls an Action Key. You can assign different functions to single, double, or long press of this button.
However, this means that the volume rocker is now on the left side of the device. The Agni 3 comes with an IP64 rating, so it should be fairly durable as well.
On the performance front, the Lava Agni 3 is powered by the Dimensity 7300X chip, which is a good mid-range processor. It scores around 6.7 lakh on Antutu, and manages an impressive 98.9% stability score on the Wildlife stress test, all without getting much warm.
It can manage to play BGMI at HDR+Ultra settings too. But obviously, serious gamers should still look towards the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3-powered iQOO Z9s Pro or OnePlus Nord CE 4.
Running on almost stock Android 14, the Agni 3 is devoid of any bloatware, which is a rarity in the under ₹25,000 segment. LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage ensure smooth performance in everyday tasks.
The haptics on this smartphone are surprisingly great for the price and are well integrated into the software as well. Lava is also promising three years of Android updates and four years of security updates on the Agni 3, let’s hope they deliver these updates on time.
When it comes to the camera system, the Agni 3 comes with a 50MP primary sensor, an 8MP ultrawide sensor, and surprise surprise, an 8MP 3X telephoto sensor as well.
Please watch the video to see camera samples.
However, it is just the main sensor that is a capable performer with a good amount of detail and decent dynamic range. Night time photos from the main sensor come out to be pretty bright and saturated.
4K 30fps videos from the main camera have a good amount of detail but they suffer from EIS jitter.
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On the other hand, the ultrawide camera is an OK performer outdoors, but suffers from loss of detail and colour shift indoors.
The telephoto camera could have been another USP of this smartphone, but it needs a lot of improvement through software updates.
The portrait photos it takes add an excessive red hue to your skin. It also very often refuses to function indoors, leaving you with digitally zoomed photos from the main sensor.
In terms of battery life, the 5000mAh battery holds up well, especially with the power-efficient Dimensity 7300X chip. You can easily expect a screen time of 6.5 to 7 hours with mixed use.
The bundled 66W fast charger can juice this phone up quickly: It managed to go from 15 to 100 percent in around 45 minutes. The variant of the Lava Agni 3 with a bundled charger starts at ₹22,999, which is pretty good value for what’s on offer.
The mini rear display, Action Key, and clean software are the standout features of this device. The Agni 3 is a promising choice for anyone looking to support an Indian brand while enjoying a potent smartphone.