Friends+Design
- The Lava Z92 is one of the better looking smartphones to come out of the manufacturer's stable
- It is also sleek, light, and feels good when held in the hand (the curved sides help)
- The Ocean Blue colour looks refreshing for this price segment
- The glossy back looks good too
- The positioning of the fingerprint sensor is good, and it is easy to reach, and pretty responsive
- There is a reasonably good face unlock too
- The back is a fingerprint magnet however and picks up smudges quite easily (Lava does ships a transparent case in the box though, which helps keep smudges off)
Display
- Large 6.22 inch notched-display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, and pretty good sunlight legibility
- The phone has thin bezels at the top and the sides, but one at below the display is considerably thicker
Software
- Lava's Star OS UI on Android is decent and has some useful add-ons: gesture navigation, gesture shortcuts, and power saving modes
- It does come with a considerable amount of bloatware preinstalled though
Performance
- The phone comes with modest hardware with the MediaTek Helio P22 SoC and 2GB of RAM - it's decent performance for day-to-day use - but app loading is on the slow side, and gameplay in complex games like PUBG is sub-optimal
Camera
- Pretty decent rear camera, especially in daylight conditions - it manages to get the exposure right and offers good details
- The Studio mode can be used to take shots with a bokeh effect - although edge detection is only average
- Video recording maxes out at 1080p and there's no stabilisation which results in shaky clips
- Selfies from the front camera don't have very good details - however you can use the Intelligent Selfie mode which uses the higher resolution rear camera and helps you frame a shot with voice prompts when you can't see the screen - these shots predictably turn out to be better
Battery
- Good battery life - with a 3260mAh battery and some good software optimization - you will get a day of use even with heavy usage
- Decent charging speed (though there is no support for 'fast charging') - the supplied 10W charger is capable of charging the phone in 1 hour and 40 minutes, and it charges to 63 percent in one hour
Verdict
- On the whole, the Lava Z92 isn't a bad phone, but the competition simply offers more powerful smartphones at the same price - you will want to look at the Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro, the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1, and the Nokia 5.1 Plus
