Obi Mobiles made its debut in India final yr as a supplier of low-cost Android smartphones. What made this firm totally different from quite a few others newcomers is that it had a powerful backer; ex-Apple CEO John Sculley to be exact. Nonetheless, Obi Mobiles appeared like each different firm, selecting an Authentic Design Producer (ODM) from China to design and manufacture telephones to promote underneath its personal title. The corporate’s debut providing, the Obi Octopus S520 (Evaluate | Photos) solely centered on specs however failed to deal with different key areas like aesthetics and consumer expertise.
Obi Worldphone SF1 2024 video
Reduce to 2015 and Obi Mobiles has reemerged as Obi Worldphone. The main target of the corporate continues to be price range smartphones for rising markets, nevertheless it’s now placing the consumer expertise and aesthetics first. The telephones and their UI at the moment are designed by a Californian design studio referred to as Ammunition, based by Robert Brunner, who was the Director of Industrial Design at Apple previously.
At the moment, we’ll be reviewing the Obi Worldphone SF1, the corporate’s new flagship providing. On paper, the cellphone seems like a promising candidate, and Obi has additionally taken sure aesthetic measures to make sure that it stands out from the horde of Android choices on this worth phase.
Feel and appear
The SF1 has a kind of ‘love-it or hate-it’ designs, which is bound to show a number of heads. The stylistic selections are undoubtedly fascinating. The cellphone comes packaged in a clear acrylic field. At first look, the smartphone seems like a fusion of an iPod Contact and a Microsoft Lumia system, which is a bizarre mixture, however someway works. The show is raised barely from the remainder of the physique, which does not actually provide any practical profit however undoubtedly stands out. This presents a doable problem with sturdiness although, because the show’s rim must take in any influence if the cellphone ever falls down face-first. The show will get Corning Gorilla Glass four for defense to safeguard towards this risk.
The 5-inch full-HD IPS show is superbly crisp; colors are punchy and daylight legibility is pretty respectable too. The display screen additionally will get an oleophobic remedy so fingerprints aren’t a nightmare. Above the display screen, we have now a 5-megapixel fixed-focus digital camera with an LED flash.
The remainder of the physique is fabricated from plastic apart from a strip of flat steel on the highest, the place we have now the three.5mm headset socket. The hybrid SIM slot is positioned on the best, whereas the amount and energy buttons are on the left. The buttons aren’t the best to make use of since they sit flush with the physique and haven’t got nice tactile suggestions.
Obi Worldphone SF1 pic
The speaker grille and Micro-USB port are on the rounded backside. The Lumia-style physique contains a matte end, which helps with grip and is simple to maintain clear. Across the again, we have now a 13-megapixel digital camera and LED flash. The 3000mAh battery is sealed in.
The SF1 ships with only a charger and a USB cable. There is no headset within the field. Obi Worldphone has actually upped its sport in the case of design and aesthetics as in comparison with its debut choices a yr in the past. The SF1 is constructed effectively, has a hanging design, and is comfortably sized. We may have used a notification LED within the entrance although, and maybe softer motion for the bodily buttons.
Specs and software program
The SF1 ticks many of the proper packing containers in the case of specs. We’ve got an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC with built-in Adreno 405 graphics. There is a selection between two variants: 3GB of RAM with 32GB of storage, and 2GB of RAM with 16GB of storage. You possibly can add as much as 64GB utilizing a microSD card perfum, however solely at the price of the second SIM due to the shared hybrid card slot. There’s additionally dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth four.zero, Twin-LTE, USB OTG, FM radio, and GPS. The cellphone helps Qualcomm’s Fast Cost 1.zero characteristic.
You get a barely dated model of Android Lollipop (5.zero.2) out-of-the-box, together with a customized pores and skin referred to as Obi Lifespeed. There is not a lot distinction between this pores and skin and inventory Android other than a customized icon pack and redesigned settings app. Different modifications (if any) are all underneath the hood. There’s an possibility to modify to the inventory Android launcher if wanted. You possibly can set long-press or double-press actions for the bodily and residential buttons, reminiscent of launching apps or instructions. Obi has additionally added toggles for good features reminiscent of flip-to-mute and auto-answer calls once you raise the cellphone to your ear.
Aside from the same old suite of Google apps and a few productiveness apps, there’s additionally Obi Care, which lists obtainable service places; Microsoft Phrase, Excel and Powerpoint; SwiftKey keyboard; and Dolby Audio. Our assessment unit was a retail piece for Vietnam so the inventory apps is likely to be totally different within the Indian model.
We like the truth that the SF1 is not burdened with undesirable bloatware, which leaves you with loads of free RAM (1.8GB on our 3GB unit) for apps. Regardless of this, we seen lags all through the interface. Whether or not it’s multitasking, opening an app and even the UI animations, there was very noticeable stuttering, which we merely could not repair. Switching to the inventory launcher and disabling window and transition animations within the developer choices helped a bit, however not a lot. We hope that is just a few type of software program glitch which could be rectified quickly with a software program patch, or higher nonetheless, an improve to Android Marshmallow.
Efficiency
Barring the annoying UI stutter, precise app efficiency is excellent due to the succesful . Gaming efficiency is sweet, and demanding ones reminiscent of Lifeless Set off 2 play with no hitch. The cellphone does not warmth up a lot both other than when it is charging or recording movies for lengthy durations.
Talking of charging, the provided energy adaptor can juice the cellphone as much as 27 % in 30 minutes, which could be useful once you’re squeezed for time. Name high quality is passable as effectively. The ambient mild sensor could be a little gradual to react at occasions because it does not all the time precisely regulate the brightness of the show.
In benchmarks, it is enterprise as normal. We acquired 35,065 in AnTuTu and 5,542 in 3DMark Ice Storm Excessive whereas GFXBench retuned 15fps within the T-Rex benchmark. These are fairly respectable numbers for a mid-range cellphone.
The SF1 does a very good job with media playback. Excessive definition recordsdata, together with high-bitrate ones, play with none hiccups. The Dolby Audio enhancement does a very good job of boosting the amount and audio high quality of your music and movies by the audio system and headphones. There are a few presets to select from, and you’ll create two customized presets. Tweaking the sound signature is tremendous simple due to the intuitive graphic equaliser.
The 13-meagpaixel digital camera manages excellent macros in daylight. Because the focus reticule is a bit giant, it is tough to get the app to lock deal with a small topics, however as soon as locked in, you get excellent element and depth of discipline. Landscapes are pretty detailed too given good lighting. Colors are impartial, and might sound muted and uninteresting if you happen to’re used to oversaturated photos. Pictures shot in low mild aren’t nice, although, as there’s a number of noise and it is troublesome to get a pointy picture because the focusing velocity dips fairly a bit. Seize velocity underneath good lighting is pretty fast.
The front-facing 5-megapixel digital camera captures satisfactory photographs. The digital camera interface is straightforward and easy. You possibly can set the digital camera to ‘Auto’ or select from listing of modes. Obi has added some further options within the IQ Digicam sub-section. ReFocus helps you to seize a scene after which manipulate the main target factors later. This did not appear to work too effectively, and we had been unable to see any noticeable focus shift whereas making an attempt to govern the picture. Chroma Flash is meant to create a single body after combing two photographs with and with out the flash, to assist mitigate washouts. As soon as once more, this does not appear too efficient, because the single LED flash is sort of weak to start with. Lastly, Opti Zoom up-samples photographs so that you get much less noise once you zoom in. It really works to an extent offered you are capturing in daylight.
You possibly can tweak different settings reminiscent of HDR, distinction, sharpness, white stability, ISO, and burst mode. Panorama mode leaves so much to be desired too as photographs aren’t stitched very effectively and objects seem barely warped. Video recording is maxes out at 1080p and the standard is sort of good, even underneath synthetic lighting. We’d have favored extra management over the main target right here as there isn’t any tap-to-focus and even any capturing modes. There is no type of video stabilisation both.
The 3000mAh battery delivered 9 hours and 53 minutes in our video loop take a look at. With common use, we discovered ourselves simply pushing previous a day’s value of utilization, which is sweet.
Verdict
The Obi Worldphone SF1 retails at Rs. 14,000 for the 32GB variant, which is fairly good contemplating the general bundle. It is undoubtedly a hanging cellphone with good construct high quality, stable battery life, and excellent audio. The digital camera is fairly good at macros and picture high quality is usually good in daylight. It is also good to see lower-mid-range choices help options reminiscent of quick charging. There are some areas during which the SF1 may use enchancment, just like the annoying intermittent stutter within the consumer interface and higher low-light digital camera efficiency. We additionally hope Obi Worldphone pushes out an Android replace rapidly because the SF1 is lacking out on all of the enhancements that Android 5.1 and later variations convey.
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