Review Summary
Expert Rating
Lava has been on a roll lately, launching new phones every other week. Among these is the Play Ultra, which has been positioned as a gaming phone. Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 SoC, a 5,000mAh battery, up to 8GB virtual RAM, and a flat AMOLED 120Hz display, the Lava Play Ultra positions itself as a budget gaming phone with a sleek design. The handset comes with a starting price of Rs 14,999, a segment where you’d mostly get a well-rounded budget phone.
So, how does the Lava Play Ultra fare as a gaming phone or a budget phone in general? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Verdict
The Lava Play Ultra offers smooth gaming, excellent thermals, an AMOLED 120Hz display, stereo speakers, clean software, and IP64 protection, making it a strong pick under Rs 15,000. However, its cameras are inconsistent, and the 5,000mAh battery with 33W charging is modest.
Stable frame rates with excellent thermals
Since gaming is the highlight of the Lava Play Ultra, let’s start there. The phone comes with a Game Booster app offering features like game acceleration, performance optimisation, and visual enhancements. Unfortunately, the app didn’t work on our review unit, but we still tested three graphics-heavy titles: COD Mobile, BGMI, and Real Racing 3.
In COD Mobile, the Play Ultra supports very high graphics and ultra FPS, the highest settings available in this segment. At medium + high settings, the handset delivered an average frame rate of 53.3FPS. This is solid, although slightly behind rivals like the POCO M7 Plus (58.4 FPS) and Realme P3x (59.4 FPS).
In BGMI, with HD graphics and a high frame rate, the Play Ultra managed an average of 28.1 FPS. While this trails the Realme P3X (29.6 FPS) and POCO M7 Pro (29.8 FPS) by a narrow margin, the gameplay experience remains smooth and enjoyable.
Thermals are where the Lava Play Ultra truly shines. After 30 minutes of continuous gaming across all three titles, the device’s average temperature dropped by 3.3 degrees C, matching the POCO M7 Plus, currently the benchmark for cooling efficiency in this price range.
Overall, gaming on the Lava Play Ultra feels smooth, responsive, and thermally well-managed. Once the Game Booster app is fully functional on the retail unit, the Play Ultra is likely to deliver an even better gaming experience.
Smooth & reliable performance
The Lava Play Ultra is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300, a 4nm octa-core processor, paired with 6GB/8GB LPDDR4X RAM (additional 6GB or 8GB of virtual RAM) and 128GB UFS 3.1 storage.
In benchmarks, the phone impressed with an AnTuTu score of 6,90,352, placing it just below the iQOO Z10x, but above the POCO M7 Plus, which managed to score 4,56,138 points. Interestingly, the handset managed to edge ahead of the Z10x in Geekbench scores, indicating stronger everyday performance. This translates well into real-world usage. During our testing, the Play Ultra handled multitasking, app launches, and navigation with no noticeable lag or stutter.
Combined with its gaming chops, the Lava Play Ultra proves to be more than capable as a daily driver for both regular use and gaming.
Clean software on a budget
Lava Play Ultra is the only phone in this price segment that offers a clean software experience. You won’t get any bloatware except for Google’s suite of applications and native apps like Lava Care and Game Booster. The UI is smooth and fast with no ads or third-party apps bothering you. Customisation is limited to choosing the clock colour that goes with your wallpaper.
You will receive two OS upgrades and three years of security updates with the Lava Play Ultra. While this is relatively standard in this segment, phones like the Redmi 15 and POCO M7 Plus promise four years of security updates.
Super loud speakers
This is something I truly enjoyed about the Lava Play Ultra, especially after moving from the Redmi 15’s single speaker. Gaming might be its forte, but the Lava Play Ultra also shines for content consumption. It has an adequately large 6.67-inch display that’s good for watching movies, shows and videos. Add to that dual stereo speakers that can get really loud. The AMOLED panel and HDR10+ certification further elevate the viewing experience. If you’re someone who uses their phone a lot to catch up on all the latest shows, you’re going to love the Lava Play Ultra.
One of the best displays, but with a tiny drawback
The Lava Play Ultra features a 6.67-inch AMOLED display, which is a standout in this segment. The handset offers smooth scrolling and vibrant colours, making it great for gaming, streaming, and everyday use. The panel also gets sufficiently bright, with a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, ensuring good readability even under direct sunlight.
That said, the auto-brightness feature could use some fine-tuning. Indoors, especially in dimly lit rooms, it often drops the brightness too low, to the point where the screen becomes difficult to use. I frequently had to switch to manual brightness to compensate for the issue. While it performs well in bright or well-lit conditions, its adjustment in low-light environments feels inconsistent and frustrating.
Doesn’t look like your typical gaming phone
The Lava Play Ultra is positioned as a gaming phone, but its design tells otherwise. With a gaming device, whether it’s a phone, laptop, or handheld, it’s expected to feature clear markings with gamer-like aesthetics, RGB lights, and cooling fans in some cases. The Lava Play Ultra is the total opposite of what you’d call a gaming phone. That’s not bad, though, as the phone has a clean and sleek look with a flat display, rounded corners, and a steel frame. It’s light and comfortable to hold, and also quite resistant to fingerprints. You get an IP64 dust and water protection, which is the best in this segment.
The handset comes in Arctic Frost and Arctic Slate colours. The camera design is similar to iQOO’s popular squircle camera deco. The overall design seems to work in Lava’s favour as the phone easily doubles as a gaming phone, while offering an elegant look at the same time.
Average cameras
The Lava Play Ultra sports a 64MP rear camera with OIS alongside a 5MP macro lens, while the front houses a 13MP selfie camera. For the price, this setup looks promising, but performance is decent at best. In daylight and portrait shots, the camera delivers acceptable results, while low-light performance is serviceable. However, night mode often overexposes scenes, and selfies suffer from inconsistent colour accuracy.
When compared to the Tecno Pova 7, which currently leads the pack in camera performance in this segment.
Daylight
The Lava Play Ultra delivers decent detail and sharpness in daylight shots, but noticeable blur creeps into many areas. In comparison, the Tecno Pova 7 captures richer detail, with elements like leaves appearing much clearer. Colours lean slightly towards saturation, and while accuracy isn’t its strong suit either, the Tecno phone handles dynamic range and exposure far better than the Lava.
Portraits
In portrait shots, the Lava Play Ultra does an impressive job with edge detection and bokeh, achieving that perfect background blur. Unfortunately, it lacks in other areas like skin tone by giving it an orangish tint, and details and clarity are also slightly inferior to the Tecno phone.
Selfies
When it comes to selfies, you get adequate results from both phones, but nothing too impressive. The Lava Play Ultra makes the skin look almost white-washed, while Tecno manages to retain the natural skin tone. Details and clarity are better on the Lava phone, but it loses out on dynamic range. The background also appears almost unnatural, with aggressive blurring.
Low-light
Low light is quite acceptable for the Lava Play Ultra. There isn’t much exposure and minimal light flare, although the Tecno Pova 7 still manages to edge ahead. There is evident noise in the low-light shot taken by the Lava phone, which results in loss of detail. This is another area where the Tecno phone shines. When it comes to maintaining colour and realism, both phones do a decent job, with Tecno Pova 7 leading by a bit.
Night mode
Both phones have a dedicated night mode designed to enhance low-light images. However, this feature does more damage than good in the Lava Play Ultra. Despite taking multiple night mode shots, the results turned out to be blurry with extensive noise and loss of detail. You’re better off taking normal low-light shots with the Lava phone.
Decent battery life
The Lava Play Ultra packs a 5,000mAh battery with support for 33W fast charging, which is bundled with the phone. This is a decent setup, but brands have been getting aggressive by offering up to 7,000mAh batteries, and you can find fast charging support up to 45W as well. With the Lava Play Ultra, we couldn’t test it through the PCMark benchmark as the app kept crashing. This would have given us a general idea of the phone’s battery life during typical productivity tasks.
In terms of real-world performance, the Lava Play Ultra can last around a whole day with moderate usage, which can include activities like social media browsing, streaming content, and video calls. If you’re a heavy user with lengthy gaming sessions, you’ll possibly have to charge it by the end of the day. Charging time is slightly longer compared to other phones, as it took 1 hour and 15 minutes to get from 20 to 100 percent. In comparison, phones with 7,000mAh batteries took less time. I wouldn’t call this the most battery-efficient phone, but it still gets the job done. You can check out other phones like the Redmi 15 (review) for a more reliable battery life.
Final verdict
The Lava Play Ultra stands out as a budget gaming phone that mostly lives up to its positioning. With the Dimensity 7300, smooth gameplay in titles like COD Mobile and BGMI, and excellent thermal efficiency, it’s a solid choice for gamers. The 6.67-inch AMOLED 120Hz display, HDR10+ support, and stereo speakers also make it great for streaming and entertainment. Add to that clean, bloat-free software and IP64 protection, and you get a phone that feels polished and practical.
That said, it’s not without shortcomings. The cameras are inconsistent, struggling in low-light and night mode, while selfies often lack colour accuracy. Battery life is decent but not class-leading, with a 5,000mAh capacity and 33W charging lagging behind rivals that offer larger batteries or faster charging. Software support is fair, with two OS updates, although Redmi and POCO promise more extended security coverage.
Overall, the Lava Play Ultra is a great choice for gamers and binge-watchers under Rs 15,000, but it may be less appealing if cameras or battery life are your top priorities.
Editor’s rating: 8.3/10
Reasons to buy
- Handles COD Mobile, BGMI, and other titles with stable frame rates.
- Good heat management even during long gaming sessions.
- No bloatware or ads, just stock-like Android with essential apps.
- Dual stereo speakers with good clarity make movies and music enjoyable.
Reasons not to buy
- Night mode shots often turn out overexposed, blurry, and noisy.
- Skin tones appear unnatural, with washed-out or overly bright results.
- 33W charging takes over an hour, while rivals charge faster.
