In 2015, Obi Mobiles came in a new avatar, Obi Worldphone. The company’s aim is still to offer budget handsets in the emerging markets, but this time more emphasis is being given on user experience and aesthetics. The responsibility of designing the phone and creating its UI has been given to California-based design studio Emulation.
today we Obi Worldphone SF1 We will review the Obi 2.0, which is the company’s new flagship handset. On paper, the phone lives up to the expectations. This time Obi has worked on the design enough to make it stand out among the many smartphones in the Android range.
Look and design
The SF1 has a love it or hate it design, meaning it will definitely attract attention. The decisions made regarding the style are interesting. At first glance, the smartphone looks like a fusion of iPod Touch and Microsoft Lumia device. This combination is a bit awkward, but seems to work. The display is slightly raised. It does not provide any new function to the user, but it manages to create its own identity. The display has Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection.
The 5-inch full-HD IPS display is crisp. Colours are vibrant and sunlight legibility is decent. Above the screen is a 5-megapixel fixed focus camera with LED flash.
The rest of the body is made of plastic, with a 3.5mm headset socket on the top. The hybrid SIM slot is on the right side, while the volume and power buttons are on the right side. The experience of using the buttons is not that great.
The speaker grill and micro-USB port are at the bottom of the handset. The Lumia style body has a matte finish which makes it easy to hold in hands. There is a 13 megapixel rear camera with LED flash on the rear panel. The 3000 mAh battery is completely sealed.
The SF1 comes with a charger and USB cable. You will not get a headset in the box. Obi Worldphone has done a good job on the design and aesthetics this time, especially compared to the first handset. The build and design of the SF1 is good and its size is also suitable for the hands.
Specifications and software
In terms of specifications, the SF1 makes most of the right decisions. You get an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset and Adreno 405 for graphics. You can choose between 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage or 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. You will also be able to use a microSD card of up to 64GB on the device. However, since it has a hybrid SIM slot, you will be able to use only one SIM with a microSD card. It has dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, dual-LTE, USB OTG, FM radio, and GPS connectivity features. The phone supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 1.0 feature.
The device will run on Android Lollipop (5.0.2) OS out of the box. Custom skin Obi Lifespeed has been used on top of it. There is not much difference between this skin and stock Android. If needed, the user is also given the option to switch to the stock Android launcher. You can also set long-press or double-press action for the home and physical buttons. Obi has also provided some other features, such as flip to mute and the option to automatically pick up the phone when the handset is brought close to the ear.
Apart from Google apps, Obi has provided many other productivity apps in this device.
We liked that the SF1 is free of unwanted apps. This means you have more RAM to use. However, we did notice some issues while using the interface. Whether it is multitasking, opening an app or any UI animation, the phone used to slow down for some reason. We were not able to get rid of this problem till the end. Switching to the stock launcher did reduce this problem a bit but it did not go away completely. We hope that this is some kind of software issue and will be fixed with the upcoming update. Or the company will just provide an upgrade to Android Marshmallow.
Performance
UI issues aside, app performance is pretty good, thanks to the powerful hardware. Gaming performance is good, and even intensive games like Dead Trigger 2 ran smoothly. The phone generally didn’t heat up too much, except when charging and recording videos for long periods of time.
Talking about charging, with the help of the power adapter provided by the company, you can get 27 percent power in your smartphone in just 30 minutes of charging. Call quality is also satisfactory. The ambient light sensor sometimes takes more time than necessary to react.
Being a mid-range phone, the benchmark test results are considered good.
The performance of SF1 in media playback is commendable. High-definition files play smoothly. Dolby Audio Enhancement is capable of improving volume and audio quality.
The 13-megapixel camera takes good photos in daylight. Its focus reticule is a bit large, due to which this app has trouble locking focus on small subjects. Landscape photos in good light come with details. Colors are quite neutral. Photos taken in low light are not very good, there is a lot of noise in it and it becomes more difficult to take sharp images.
The 5-megapixel front camera takes decent pictures. The camera interface is simple and easy to use. You can use the camera in auto mode or there are several other modes available. Obi has added some new features in the IQ camera sub-section. Refocus lets you reset the focus point in previously taken pictures. This feature did not work properly for us.
You can also make changes to HDR, contrast, sharpness, white balance, ISO and burst mode as per your convenience. You will not be satisfied with the pictures taken in panorama mode as well, because the pictures taken separately do not look properly connected to each other. You will be able to record video of 1080 pixel resolution and its quality is also quite good. We wanted the option to control the focus in the shooting mode. Apart from this, the option of video stabilization is also not available.
The 3000mAh battery lasted 9 hours and 53 minutes in the video loop test. With normal use, the phone easily lasted a day. We managed to use the handset the next day as well.
Our verdict
The 32GB variant of the Obi Worldphone SF1 is available for Rs 14,000. As a whole package, it is a great offering. With good build quality, excellent battery life and audio quality, it will grab your attention in any situation. The camera works well, especially in daylight. One good thing is that you also get a quick charging feature in this mid-range phone. There are a few areas where the SF1 needs improvement. Especially the sluggish UI. Apart from this, the camera performance in low light. We hope that Obi Worldphone will soon release a software update for the SF1 so that users can take advantage of the features of Android 5.1 Lollipop and above.
It is known that Gadgets 360 is the exclusive retail partner of Obi Worldphone SF1. Obi Worldphone owner John Sculley’s company Inflexion Point has invested in NDTV’s Gadgets 360.