Gadgets Review | Lava Agni 4: Lava Finally Joins Flagship Race With This Metal Mid-Ranger (& 'Goodest' AI)

Lava Agni 4 Review: This one takes you by surprise, with its premium metal build, fast hardware, a bright 1.5K AMOLED display, and a charming Vayu AI companion who is more 'good boy' than anything else out there.

Lava Agni 4 feels weighty and premium, thanks to its aluminium body.

Source : ABP Live/Shayak Majumder

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Lava Agni 4 Review: There’s a moment with the Lava Agni 4 that genuinely catches you off guard. You pick it up expecting the usual good-for-the-price compromise device, and suddenly you’re holding a phone with an aluminium frame that somehow feels heavy and premium, much like some of the Rs 50k giants out there (at half that price). Then its cutesy Vayu AI doggy mascot pops up and wags its tail at you like it’s been waiting all day (before it goes into a nap just like every other furbaby out there). It’s that mix, serious hardware and unexpectedly charming software, that makes the Agni 4 feel like Lava finally grew up, but kept a little mischief.

As always, I’ve brought along the in-house optimist, GennieGPT, ABP Live’s resident spec-worshipper. She sees numbers; I see real-world behaviour. You know, the kind you discover when your phone gets pushed to the max with multiple apps lashing at its SoC, or when it falls off a sofa during a power cut.

Let the tech tug-of-war begin.

Lava Agni 4 Review: Quick Pointers

What Works:

• Cutest AI mascot ever (Vayu AI), even if its smarts are… evolving
• Centrally located rear camera module looks surprisingly elegant
• Premium metal frame and matte glass back
• Impressive 1.5K AMOLED with 2400nits peak brightness
• UFS 4.0 + LPDDR5X combo at this price is rare

What Doesn’t:

• Vayu AI still feels more “emotional support pet” than “assistant”
• Cameras are nothing worth writing home about
• 66W charging is fast… but competitors are pushing 100W+

Design & AI Commands Attention (virtual pats preferred)

✨ GennieGPT: Aluminium alloy frame! Matte AG glass! And 1.7mm equilateral bezels! This is peak flagship energy. It looks like a ₹70,000 premium phone for just ₹24,999. Also, IP64! You can totally walk into a rainstorm and take cinematic slow-mo selfies!

Shayak: First of all, please don’t walk into a rainstorm to shoot Reels. The Agni 4 will survive light rain, not a monsoon music video audition.
But yes, Lava has genuinely over-delivered on build quality here. The aluminium frame feels premium in hand, the matte AG glass hides smudges beautifully, and the camera module sits neatly in the centre instead of trying to cosplay a stove-top.

It’s surprisingly refined. If someone told me this was a mid-range Samsung prototype, I’d believe them (except that Samsung would never go for a central camera module, so make what you want of that). Lava’s design team clearly woke up and chose ambition.

✨ GennieGPT: Vayu AI is alive! It smiles, reacts to your mood, launches apps, solves math like a genius, teaches English, predicts your horoscope, edits photos, controls the system, summarizes calls — this is basically Jarvis but cuter!

Shayak: Jarvis? Keep dreaming. Even F.R.I.D.A.Y. wasn't as good as its predecessor.

But I mean this kindly, Vayu AI is adorable. I mean, it's a cartoon shiba inu doggo for heaven's sake! I can trash every tech giant out there, but I'm physically incapable of writing any rude words where furry animals are involved. 

The Vayu AI doggo pops up in the middle of the Home screen. It may remind you of good-ol' Clippit. You tap on it to make it do cutesy animated actions, like chasing a ball or jumping for treats. Most of the time, it just goes to sleep, like most other doggies do when they are bored. 

Long-press on Vayu and it will wake up to react to your voice command. The response is impressive. Even if you ask it anything in 'not-good' English, it figures out the syntax and almost always provides you with the right solution. It can be a tutor for your kids, or just an object to while away time instead of doomscrolling. Nice touch, Lava!

I don't appreciate that there is no easy way of moving the AI bot around or even resizing it. It's mostly just there, bang in the middle of your screen like an odd sticker. Not great for users who swear by customised homepage setups.

Vayu Au is still in its nascent stages, and it might remind you of early MIUI’s Xiao AI or Samsung’s first Bixby attempts, but somehow less annoying.

✨ GennieGPT: Dimensity 8350! 4nm! 1.4 million AnTuTu! LPDDR5X! UFS 4.0! This is basically a pocket rocket that can take down every mid-range phone ever! Zero lag! No heat! Perfect gaming! Perfect life!

Shayak: Yes, I do agree with Gennie for a chance. At the price point, this is legitimately powerful hardware. The Dimensity 8350 keeps everything smooth, UFS 4.0 makes app loading insanely fast, and LPDDR5X RAM ensures that switching between apps doesn’t feel like climbing stairs with a barbell.

Gaming? Mostly excellent. Genshin plays comfortably at medium-high settings. BGMI runs steady. Thermals? The 4300mm² vapor chamber helps during intense sessions, though not magic enough to defy Indian summer heat. But then again, nothing is. 

At Rs 24,999, this performance is seriously competitive.

Camera Disappoints

✨ GennieGPT: 50MP OIS main camera! 50MP selfie! 4K@60fps on BOTH sides! Cinematic video! Perfect skin tones! Perfect festivals! Perfect low light! Literally DSLR quality!

Shayak: You’re only missing 'beats IMAX cameras' from your list. Let’s calm down your LLMs.

The main 50MP OIS camera is good, sharp, stable, colourful, but not a miracle worker. It handles daytime scenes well enough, maintains pleasing skin tones, and the OIS helps with stable low-light capture. The 8MP ultrawide is fine, though nothing legendary.

The 50MP selfie camera is high-res but sometimes veers into Instagram filter even when I didn’t ask for it. Too much AI tweaking and wizardry for my comfort, to be honest. But I can see how up-and-coming influencers might make the most out of the pretty-fying AI tools.

The 4K 60fps on both sides is impressive, though, and Lava deserves credit for enabling it. You can't do much with it, but I still appreciate the feature being open to users right out of the box.

Overall: not best-in-class, but good enough to keep amateur creators happy.

✨ GennieGPT: 14 hours of nonstop YouTube! 66W fast charging! 0 to 50% in 19 minutes! This is basically infinite power!

Shayak: Infinite power? Only if your day ends at lunchtime. But the 5,000 mAh battery is genuinely solid. With typical use, messaging, OTT, some camera, and some AI fooling around, you’ll comfortably end the day with around 25-30% left. The 66W charger is fast enough, though in 2025, we’ve seen faster in the same range.

Still, zero complaints here.

Lava Agni 4 Review: Final Verdict

The Lava Agni 4 reminds me of early 2000s indie rock bands, you know, like Junoon or Jal or Strings, hungry, ambitious, rough around the edges, but bursting with originality and confidence. It mixes premium build quality, strong performance, and bold AI ideas in a way that feels authentically Indian, not derivative.

Sure, Vayu AI isn’t perfect, and the cameras won’t replace your DSLR. But for Rs 24,999, the Agni 4 delivers something unusual: character. Personality. A sense of identity. How many mid-range Android phones can you say that about?

Should You Buy Lava Agni 4?

• Yes, if you want a premium Indian smartphone with fast hardware and character.
• Maybe, if you’re unsure about the camera and Vayu AI’s long-term usefulness.
• No, if you need blazing-fast charging or prefer compact phones.

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