Lava brings back memories of Mi 11 Ultra by slapping a touchscreen on the back of its latest phone

Indian brand Lava makes a comeback with its latest trendy smartphone, the Agni 3. This 5G-enabled phone is now available to purchase in India.

The main selling point of the Agni 2's direct successor is its fully functional back touchscreen. Lava incorporated a 1.74-inch secondary AMOLED touchscreen on the back of the phone in a move very similar to what Xiaomi did with its Mi 11 Ultra around three years ago.

Much like it is with flip phones, you can do a lot of things with the Agni 3’s back screen such as managing the camera, media playback, and notifications. The back display also allows one to control first-party apps like step tracker, weather and timer.

Under the hood, the smartphone has the 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 7300X that's coupled with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Unfortunately, there’s no option for expanding the storage as microSD cards are not supported. The product runs Android 14 out of the box. Lava promises three major Android updates (Android 15, 16, 17) and four years of security patches for the Agni 3, which is great considering the product's affordable price.

The Agni 3 boasts a large 6.78-inch curved AMOLED display with 1.5K resolution (1200x2652 pixels). The screen’s 120 Hz refresh rate offers a buttery smooth scrolling experience. The panel delivers up to 1200 nits of peak brightness which means you can effortlessly use the smartphone directly under the sunlight.

As far as cameras are concerned, it has a triple rear camera array at the back consisting of a 50MP primary camera with a Sony 1/1.55” sensor, an 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, and an 8MP ultrawide shooter. On the front, it has a 16MP selfie shooter for capturing selfies and video chats.

The device houses a 5,000mAh battery with 66W wired charging support. Another interesting thing about the Lava Agni 3 is, you get a dedicated customizable Action key similar to the latest iPhone 16 series phones. You can use the action button to snap pictures, take screenshots, start recording or quickly switch between mute, silent, and ring profiles. Any app the user desires can also be launched with this button.

The Lava Agni 3 starts at INR 20,999 ($250) for the base 8GB + 128GB variant while the high-end 8GB + 256GB model is priced at INR 24,999 ($300). It comes in two color options, Heather Glass and Pristine Glass. The device is currently available for pre-order from Amazon India with full-scale sales set to start on the 9th of October.