Lava Virat V1 5G review: New name, familiar feeling

Here’s a fun fact: India’s star cricketer Virat Kohli just completed 18 years in international cricket. Kohli made his India debut against Sri Lanka, on August 18, 2008. The rest as they say is history. In separate news, Lava is out now with a new smartphone series. It is called the Lava Virat. As far as we know, it has got nothing to do with Virat Kohli, but one wonders if the branding is more than just a coincidence. We digress.

The Virat series from Lava is making its grand India debut with the Lava Virat V1. The V1 comes in two flavours. One with 5G connectivity and other with only 4G. Expectedly, the pricing is different. The Lava Virat 5G we are reviewing comes in at Rs 12,999. The Lava Virat 4G comes in at Rs 9,999. You can choose one to depend on your budget and preference. Choice is good. It makes you believe you’re in control. Given the current market situation, that is a luxury, so credit to Lava for going the extra mile.

As for the phone itself, just because Lava has chosen to go with Virat, it doesn’t mean that it would work like King Kohli. In this India Today Tech review, we will try to answer is the V1 5G lives up to the name.

Lava Virat V1 5G design

The first time you look at the Lava Virat V1 5G, you forget its price. The back has an interesting pattern that adds character without feeling too in your face. You get a bunch of asymmetrical lines with the Lava logo on the bottom left. The Arya Blue shade we have looks quite sleek in my opinion. But you can also get it in Sonar Gold.

There is a square-ish camera module on the left, with a reflective surface that changes colour depending on the light. The camera module has a small cut at the bottom that again helps keep things interesting.

The Virat V1 5G is a budget phone, and as such you get a plastic back and a plastic flat frame. But the phone feels good to hold, and it seems that Lava has not cut corners here. The 6.75-inch screen is big, but the phone doesn’t feel too big to hold in one hand. The phone weighs 210 grams, and has a thickness of 8.75mm, but it is not bulky, and you get used to it quite quickly.

The fingerprint sensor is embedded in the power button and is quite fast. And you also get an IP64 rating for dust and water resistance. This means that the Lava Virat V1 5G is safe from some odd splashes here and there. There is also a headphone jack.

Another addition here that you will appreciate is that the Virat V1 5G comes with a tinted TPU case in the box.

Lava Virat V1 5G display and sound

Coming back to the display, as I mentioned earlier the Virat V1 5G uses a 6.75-inch screen. It is an HD Plus IPS display with a 120Hz refresh rate. You get a waterdrop notch for the selfie camera. There is a chin at the bottom, but again, this is expected at this price.

While it is a 720p panel, you don’t notice any pixelation. I did find that the colours are on the cooler side, but that is something that usually happens with IPS panels.

Watching videos on YouTube or scrolling through Reels is a pleasant experience on the Lava Virat V1 5G. You can actually play 4K videos on YouTube with HDR, but there is only Widevine L3 support for Netflix.

The Virat V1 5G comes with a single bottom firing speaker. Mono-speaker setups are never the loudest out there, but it does the job here. And you can actually binge shows like The Big Bang Theory without needing to look for headphones. While listening to music, the audio may feel a bit hollow.

Lava Virat V1 5G performance

Under the hood, the Virat V1 5G is powered by the Unisoc T8200 chipset, which also powers the similarly-priced HMD Vibe 2 5G. To give you some context, this chipset from Unisoc is comparable to the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 – which has been used in phones from under Rs 10,000 all the way to Rs 30,000 – thank you memory shortage!

But what does this mean in the real world? The Virat V1 5G is not designed for a power user, no phone in this price range can really handle heavy workloads. But what the Lava device does well is the usual everyday tasks you might do. You can browse social media, go through webpages, and take a few photos, and the Virat V1 5G can handle it. There are some jitters that you may face here and there, which is not uncommon for a phone at this price.

In terms of gaming, I tried playing Call of Duty Mobile on the device and the gameplay was not bad. The Lava Virat V1 5G can play up to Medium graphics at Max frame rate, and doesn’t get too warm after a couple of sessions. But I would suggest that you stick to casual games like Subway Surfers here.

When it comes to benchmarks, the Virat V1 5G scores about 515,000 on AnTuTu. On Geekbench, you get 700 points in single-core, and 1,738 points in multi-core.

While the Virat V1 5G comes in a single 4GB/64GB variant, you do get support for up to 1TB of expandable storage via MicroSD. The device allows you to have two SIMs along with MicroSD instead of a hybrid slot. The Virat V1 5G comes with eMMC storage, but other phones at this price, like the HMD Vibe 2 5G also use the same storage type, and not the faster UFS 2.2.

Lava Virat V1 5G battery life

The Virat V1 5G comes with a 6,000mAh battery, making it one of the strong suits of the device. This is paired with 18W charging support, but you get a 10W charger in the box.

In my usage, I found that the Lava Virat V1 5G is quite efficient, thanks to the combination of the chipset and the screen. You can easily get at least 7 to 8 hours of screen-on time here. That is, if you are an average user, who uses the phone just for social media, some video streaming or making calls, the Virat V1 5G is easily a two-day phone.

But the charging does take some time. Usually it takes almost three hours to charge it from 0 to 100 with the charger you get in the box. I would suggest charging the phone overnight in this case.

Lava Virat V1 5G cameras

The Virat V1 5G has 13-megapixel camera on the rear, with a 5-megapixel selfie shooter. For the price, the results from both sensors are quite decent. The main sensor can get an adequate amount of detail in images. Though I found that usually it would tend to overexpose photos, and you may want to manually reduce the brightness while clicking pictures. The portrait mode does the job too, and the edge detection is as you’d expect in this segment. Of course, the phone does struggle a bit while taking photos in low light.

Coming to the selfie camera, the Virat V1 5G, there is enough detail that makes the photos usable for sharing, but that’s about it.

Click on any image below to view the entire gallery

In terms of video recording, the Virat V1 5G gets up to 4K at 30fps support for the main sensor, something that a few phones that even cost twice as much do not get. But there is no OIS, and the footage is not groundbreaking, but it can capture your moments or you can use it to create Reels. The front camera can shoot up to 1080p only.

Lava Virat V1 5G user experience

The Virat V1 5G runs on Android 16 out of the box. The UI is quite clean and minimal. Most budget phones are usually full of bloatware, so Lava’s interface will feel fresh. There are no annoying recommendations, and the layout is clean. Like other Lava phones, this makes the Virat V1 5G a decent pick if you are planning to buy a phone for your parents who may not be so tech savvy.

A few months ago, when I reviewed the Lava Agni 4, I had said that the UI felt a bit basic compared to rivals. Now, Lava has managed to spice things up with the Virat V1 5G. You get a bunch of icon packs to choose from, which really helps lift the experience, even if other customisation options remain fewer than something like ColorOS or OriginOS.

Though if you really like to play around with your phone’s customisation options, you can download a launcher from the Play Store.

But there is one thing that may bother you, and that is Gamespace. You see, Lava has always promised to give a bloatware-free experience with its phones. But on the Virat V1 5G, the Gamespace app comes with pre-installed games. This is not a dealbreaker, since some phones costing twice as much as the Virat V1 5G come with many third-party apps, but it is something you should know.

Lava Virat V1 5G verdict

So what does the Lava Virat V1 5G do? For the price, the phone gets a lot right. You get clean software, the battery life is decent, and the display is fine too. Yes, the performance may not be groundbreaking, and you get eMMC storage but given the memory crisis that the whole industry is facing, Lava had to keep things at a certain cost.

The way I see it, the Virat V1 5G does not reinvent the wheel, but it focuses on what it can do for the user who buys a phone at this price. There are no unnecessary ads or app recommendations, and the overall experience is simple. And if you have used a budget phone, you may understand how refreshing simplicity may feel. While the Virat V1 5G marks Lava’s latest smartphone lineup, it comes with almost everything you expect from the company, and that is what should attract you to it if you want to buy a budget 5G device.