Lava Bold N1 Pro review: looks clean, delivers the basics

Lava has been expanding its affordable phone lineup with multiple new launches. The Bold N1 series arrived in India recently, close on the heels of the Bold lineup. The Lava Bold N1 Pro offers a 120Hz display, a 50MP AI triple rear camera, a 5,000mAh battery, and an Unisoc octa-core processor. Here, we’ll see how these features and the phone’s overall performance fare in real-world use and synthetic tests.

I’ve been using it for a week to gauge its value and find an account of my experience in this 91mobiles’ Lava Bold N1 Pro review:

Verdict

The Lava Bold N1 Pro covers the essentials for an entry-level smartphone. The handset looks fine, feels mostly smooth thanks to a 120Hz display and bloat-free Android, and lasts decently long with a big battery. Everything else is as basic as you’d expect. If you’re hunting for a good-looking phone with decent performance, a clean UI, and long battery life on a budget, it’s worth considering.

Design and display

The Lava Bold N1 Pro comes in two colours, viz., Titanium Gold and Stealth Black. Our review unit is the latter. Like the name, the colour makes it look unassuming. However, the rear panel has an iPhone 16 Pro-inspired rear camera island. The squircle island and the camera rings don’t protrude enough to make it wobble when the phone is kept on a desk. Tilt the phone and the island shows a multi-colour gradient. Even without that, its light blue tone stands out against the darker glossy back panel.

The glossy finish of the back panel looks nice but does attract smudges. The phone is IP54 dust and water resistant, which means it’s fine for light rain or dusty environments, but not for submersion or heavy dust exposure.

The sides have a matte finish. On the right side, there are decently tactile and reachable buttons, and the power button doubles up as a fingerprint reader (which is quite responsive). On the left side, there is a SIM card + microSD card slot. On the top, there is a mic, while on the bottom edge, it sports another mic, a 3.5mm jack, a USB-C port, and a speaker grille.

Coming to the front, there is a punch-hole with a camera that quickly gives you access to your phone with face unlock, apart from handling selfie duties. The 6.67-inch screen has thin bezels on the sides and the top. The bottom bezel is comparatively thicker, but isn’t as noticeable as its competitor, the POCO C71‘s chin.

The panel is an LCD with HD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. In the Display settings, you can set the panel to refresh at the best possible 120Hz refresh rate, or up to 90Hz, or save battery with a standard 60Hz refresh rate. The POCO C71 only lets you choose between 60Hz and 120Hz options, so the more flexible approach on the Lava phone is appreciable.

The Lava Bold N1 Pro offers a neutral colour temperature and softer details. You’ll get a serviceable viewing experience on YouTube (up to 1080P) and Netflix content up to 480P quality (Widevine L3).

As for sound, the downward-firing speaker output of the Lava Bold N1 Pro is average, but when compared side-by-side, it is louder (75.8 decibels), clearer and richer than the upward-firing speaker of the POCO C71 (74.4 decibels).

Cameras

In terms of optics, the Lava Bold N1 Pro touts a 50MP camera on the back with PDAF, HDR, and the ability to shoot up to 1080P videos at 30FPS. In the camera app, you get options like Portrait, Night, Pro, Slow Motion, Ultra-res, Time Lapse, QR code scanner and Google Lens integration.

The phone captures decent shots in good daylight. But the colours are muted and the details are soft. The Ultra-res mode clicks slightly sharper photos with a bigger file size. Portrait mode and Night mode shots are also just about passable for the price.

Let’s now dig deeper and compare the photos from Lava N1 Pro against its rival, the POCO C71 (review).

Daylight

The photo from the Lava Bold N1 Pro has sharper details than the one from the POCO C71. But the POCO photo has better dynamic range, as evident in the clouds in the sky, which are absent on the Lava photo.

The colours look flat on the Lava photo without the natural warmth or vibrancy of the sunlight. Look at the green shrubs. The reds on the building don’t appear natural.

Portrait

The portrait shot from the Lava Bold N1 Pro has an uneven bokeh effect, and the edge detection is also spotty. While the Lava phone is behind the POCO phone in these respects, it does retain more details.

Selfie

The selfies from the Lava Bold N1 Pro have more light and punchier colours than the POCO C71, but highlight details are blown out. Notice the sky and the faded lines on the white t-shirt.

Low-light (night mode)

The Night mode helps in controlling the exposure and offers more apparent details in both phones. The Lava Bold N1 Pro’s Night mode shot is brighter and pulls in more detail from the shadows. But there’s noticeable lens flare and haloing around the lights.

As for videos, the rear camera records at 1080P 30FPS. The output is more stable, vibrant, and better lit than the POCO C71’s. However, colours and exposure look more natural in the POCO video. Meanwhile, the front video from the Lava phone maxes out at 720P quality and is inferior to the 1080P video from the POCO phone.

Performance and software

The Lava Bold N1 Pro is powered by a 12nm Unisoc T606 processor, with two Cortex A75 performance cores clocked at 1.6GHz. Its efficiency cores also run at the same clock speed, but they are Cortex-A55 cores. You can expect a bare-essential performance from this chip. For context, here’s how it performed in benchmark tests:

As you can see, the Unisoc T7250 inside the POCO C71 can perform faster.

The performance on the Lava phone is backed by 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB eMMC 5.1 storage. You can expand RAM up to an additional 4GB virtually, and the ROM can be extended up to 256GB using a memory card. By the way, the phone has a hybrid slot. The POCO phone offers more memory configurations up to 6GB + 128GB, and it has a dedicated microSD slot as well.

In real-world use, the Lava Bold N1 Pro feels mostly smooth, with occasional jitters. I could browse multiple Chrome tabs, scroll and watch YouTube in full screen, play casual games, and use Reddit and Instagram without major issues. However, there were slight pauses while switching between recent apps, some friction while scrolling Instagram, and not many apps stay in memory either. But all this is expected from an entry-level phone.

If you want more than casual gaming, FPS titles like COD: Mobile can be played at Low to Medium graphics + High frame rates, and BGMI at HD graphics and High frame rates. As the Burnout test shows, under continuous heavy load, the Lava Bold N1 Pro fares better than the POCO C71.

Coming to the software side, Lava offers nearly stock Android 14, and as advertised, it has no ads or bloatware. But, you still get utilities like Gemini AI and an application sidebar, along with features like the ability to double-tap on the screen to wake it or turn it off, lift the phone to check time, notifications, and more, which is neat.

Lava assures an Android 15 update and two years of security patches. But since the POCO C71 already ships with Android 15 and still promises two years of OS upgrades and four years of security updates, Lava’s offer feels limited in comparison.

Battery and charging

A 5,000mAh battery keeps the phone running. In our PCMark battery test, the phone ran for 11 hours and 17 minutes. And in a 30-minute YouTube playback test, the battery dropped by 4 percent. While these results are good and better than many phones in this league, the Lava phone isn’t as efficient as the POCO C71, which, with its Android Go platform, managed 13 hours and 41 minutes of battery life.

As for charging, the phone ships with a 10W charger but supports an 18W charging speed. So, if you happen to have a compatible 18W adapter, you can use it for a speedier top-up. In our test, charging from 20 to 100 percent took 146 minutes.

Final verdict

The Lava Bold N1 Pro covers the basics for an entry-level smartphone. It feels smooth enough for most everyday tasks, partly thanks to a 120Hz display and a near-stock Android OS with helpful touches like Gemini AI and quick gestures. This experience can last decently long with a big battery.

The rest of the phone stays on theme: strictly basic, which you may expect at this price. You get an HD+ display and a 50MP camera that is usable under favourable lighting. The performance and battery life, while decent, fall short of the competition, like the POCO C71.

So, you may consider the Lava phone if you want a good-looking phone with clean software and all the basics on a budget, nothing more. The handset costs Rs 6,799 and is available on Amazon.

Editor’s Rating: 7.5 / 10

Reasons to buy:

• The phone runs clean, stock Android 14 OS with no ads or bloatware
• Its 120Hz display adds fluidity to scrolling and everyday tasks
• The design is fine, familiar and functional with an IP54 rating
• A 5,000mAh battery offers enough backup to last a full day with light to moderate use.

Reasons not to buy:

• Average cameras with neutral colours, soft details, and 720P selfie videos
• Charging is slow, taking over two hours to fully top up