Lava Play Ultra

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.