Lava is out with its new offering – the Grand 2. At AED 635, the Grand 2 is indeed a low-cost and good quality phone. In terms of design, the Grand 2 is made from a mix of metal, glass and plastic. The overall build quality is quite good for that price point. With less than 9mm of thinness, the Grand 2 weighs around 103 grams without battery and 150 grams with battery.
On the front, you will find a 5.5-inch display, with three hardware buttons on the bottom of the screen. These include Options, Home and Back. On the top of the display you will find an 8-megapixel camera and an LED flash. The left edge is completely blank, while the right edge has the power button and the volume rockers.
Turn the phone around, and you will find the 13-megapixel main camera along with the LED flash module placed next to it. The top edge has the 3.5mm audio jack, while the bottom edge has a micro USB port for charging and syncing data.
The backplate on the Grand 2 is a removable battery cover. Upon opening it, you will find a removable 3000 mAh battery, which is quite hard to come by these days. You will also find two SIM slots and a separate slot for inserting micro SD cards.
Under the hood, the phone runs on a 1.3Ghz quad core processor from Mediatek. It also comes with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage, which can be further expanded using a micro SD card. The phone runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system and Lava’s very own Star OS overlay on top of it.
The overall performance of the Lava Grand 2 was quite good – it performed relatively well on the AnTuTu benchmark tests. Multitasking was smooth and free from any serious instances of stutter or lag. It also handled processor-intensive games quite well, though in rare instances we did experience dropped frames.
Battery life on the Lava Grand 2 is good, clocking 7 hours, 28 minutes in our rundown test, in which we stream full-screen video over Wi-Fi at maximum brightness. The 13-megapixel rear camera sensor is decent, but not very reliable. I was able to take good photos in well-lit settings, but any other lighting conditions presented issues. The 8-megapixel front-facing camera is good in proper lighting, but a bit muddy in dimmer settings.
The Lava Grad 2 has just about everything you can want in an affordable phone. You get an attractive build, a crisp display, solid battery life, and good performance. The Grand 2 is definitely a solid alternative in a crowded field.
[highlight color=”yellow”]Price: AED 635[/highlight]
