Sometime in 2018, Indian phone manufacturer Lava International revealed a plan to officially avail its phones in the country. Well, that day is finally here as the company’s hold in the Kenyan market has been finalized.
Lava manufactures low-cost feature and smartphones and has been doing very well in other markets. Its operations are primarily based in India, the Middle East and a handful of other Asian countries, as well as Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Ghana, Mexico and now, Kenya.
Lava’s target market is what a typical Kenyan smartphone buyer is. These are groups that search for the best bargain in the market, which is what the likes of Transsion Holdings has been doing. It will be interesting to see whether their series of devices will compete against early market entrants such as the Infinix and TECNO (Transsion) that have done an admirable job in distributing entry- to mid-level smartphones.
The lineup
Lava Z1
The Z1 has a 6.2” HD+ screen, 4/64 GB memory, 13/16 MP camera (higher for the selfie snapper) and a 3180 mAh battery.
Price: To be announced when it is available as of next week.
Lava Z92
This is another big boy of the bunch and will be available next week too. It has a notched 6.2” HD+ display with Gorilla Glass 3/32 GB memory combo and an MTK P22 chipset. Optics-wise, the Z92 has a 13 MP rear camera and 8 MP front snapper. It is powered by a 3180 mAh cell.
Price: To be announced
Lava Z81
It packs the same HD+ screen that stretches to 5.7” in size. Under the hood is MTK A22 chipset like that in the Xiaomi Redmi 6A, 3/32 or 2/16 GB memory and a 13MP at the back and front. It is also juiced up by a 3000 mAh cell.
Price: KES 14,000 for the 3/32 GB model, KES 12,000 or the 2/16 GB model.
Lava Iris 42 and Iris 51
These are fairly compact phones at 5-inches. The 51 has a 2500 mAh cell, whereas the 42 packs a 2000 mAh battery. Both come with Android 8.1 Go Edition, a gig of RAM and 8GB of onboard memory, so the resources should be sufficient to push daily operations. The Iris 51 has a better rear cam at 8 MP versus 5 MP for the Iris 42.
Price for the Iris 51: KES 6,500
Lava Z50 Pro
It matches most of the 51 specs: Android 8.1 Oreo Go Edition, 1/8GB memory, a 2500 mAh battery and a 5-inch screen. However, the Z50 Pro has support for 4G networks.
Feature phones
Lava Champion A1 – KES 1,300
Lava Champion C1 – KES 1,600
Lava Champion N1 – KES 2,000
All devices that have a price on them are already available in the market as of this writing. We will update the post as soon as they hit local shelves. Lastly, the handhelds will be distributed by FonesRus.
