Lava becomes first Indian brand to launch 5G smartphone

Home-grown mobile phone company Lava International has become the first Indian brand to launch 5G smartphones for domestic consumers.

The smartphone launched under the brand name 'Agni' has been developed by Lava in India and is getting manufactured at its plant in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.

"The purpose of launching Agni is to give Indian consumers the choice of a made in India 5G smartphone for Indians by an Indian company.

"We wanted to establish before people that there can be an Indian brand which is technology oriented.

"We are second in the world to launch a 5G smartphone on Mediatek Dimensity 810 chipset," Sunil Raina, president & business head, Lava International told PTI on the sidelines of the launch.

He said that the price of Agni has been kept at Rs 19,999 which is competitive, compared to Chinese brands that dominate the Indian market at present.

The Lava Agni 5G will come with a 6.78 inch full high-definition plus IPS punch hole display which is largest in its segment.

"We have beaten most of the Chinese brands in specification.

"It makes a statement that Indian companies, at least Lava, is capable of building a phone from scratch... enter into a segment which is highly competitive and lead the show.

"On pricing, we are offering Agni 5G for Rs 17,999 on pre-booking," Raina said.

The phone's screen has Corning Gorilla Glass protection for higher durability, 8GB Ram, 128 GB internal storage.

The company has placed higher camera specifications compared to Chinese brands selling smartphones on the same Mediatek 5G chipset.

Lava Agni 5G will come with a 64 megapixel primary camera, along with a 5 MP wide-angle camera, 2 MP Depth camera, and a 2 MP macro camera, It will have a 16 MP front camera.

Raina said Lava Agni 5G has a large 5000 mAh battery which comes with a 30W superfast charger that gets the phone ready with full charge in less than 90 minutes.

Lava Agni 5G will be available across retail outlets as well as through Amazon and Flipkart from November 18.

The pre-booking window is open for users from November 9 to 17, on the Lava e-store and on Amazon by paying a pre-booking amount of Rs 500.

Photograph: Lava via Twitter