Obi Worldphone has stepped swiftly into the South Asian market. After India, the company is now operating in Nepal. Jyoti Group is working as the official distributor of Obi and they have brought two devices in this first phase. We discussed in our previous article regarding Jyoti Group launching Obi Worldphone in Nepal and how they are planning for bringing more of their smartphones. As of now, Obi Nepal has launched Obi Worldphone SF1 in the market. I also got the Obi SF1 review unit and did all the benchmark, stress, and battery tests to check the device. So here is my Obi Worldphone SF1 full review with all details and impressions.
Obi Worldphone SF1 comes in two variants or models. First is the 16 GB model and next is the 32 GB model. There is a substantial price gap between these variants. Obi SF1 price in Nepal is Rs 21,499 for 16 GB model and Rs 26,199 for 32 GB model. In this review, we are using a 16 GB model which has 2 GB RAM. So this review tells more about the performance of the SF1 with 2 GB RAM. However, the 3 GB RAM model should only differ in performance by a small margin.
Obi Worldphone SF1 Specifications
Design and Build
Obi Worldphone SF1 has a unibody metal construction that encloses all the hardware. The metal body has rounded sides with the volume rocker and power button on the left side. The top side is flat with a headphone jack and the bottom is rounded with a USB port and speaker grills. All this metal body and unibody construction give the mobile phone a stunningly unique and sturdy design. One of the key design or unique-looking features of the Obi SF1 is the floating screen. The screen on the front looks like it is floating above so it doesn’t sit flush like other phones.
Internal Hardware and Benchmark Results
Obi smartphones are targeting budget conscious customers and they are offering powerful internals at lower prices. So the Obi SF1 has a Snapdragon 615 SoC which has a 1.5 GHz octa-core processor. According to our Geekbech 3 single-core result, the performance of this phone is similar to Galaxy S4 and very close to Motorola Moto X. We also tested some games and they ran in mid to high settings.
For memory and storage, there are two choices. First, there is 2 GB RAM with 16 GB internal storage version and second, there is 3 GB RAM with 32 GB internal storage version. So users can get a base of 2/16 GB or a maximum of 3/32 GB model. Both versions also support external SD cards up to 64 GB. So there is plenty of storage space.
The phone has a 3000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 1.0 support which is absolutely fantastic. It is one of the best batteries we have seen in any budget smartphone. In our test, we left the phone to download some movies for the whole night, and the battery was just reduced by 20%. There is a pretty special battery saving mode so ultimately the battery life is fantastic.
For communication, Obi Worldphone SF1 comes with 4G LTE network support. So when NTC or Ncell starts 4G you can enjoy high speed data. In the SIM card part, the tray is special because it can handle one Nano-SIM and one Micro-SIM. It is very unique because most phones don’t have such compatibility.
Display and Cameras
Obi Worldphone SF1 has a very unique floating screen. The 5″ IPS LCD panel stays afloat on top of the body of the phone. It has 443 PPI pixel density and 1080×1920 FHD resolution which makes it really crispy, detailed, bright, and also fun to use. On top of all that, there is Gorilla Glass 4 protection to prevent scratches and save from drops.
Also Read: OnePlus 3 Price in Nepal, Specs, Features
Within the floating screen, there is a 5 MP front-facing camera that can record 1280x720p videos. This camera is sufficient for normal video calling, conferencing, and selfie usage. The front side also has an LED flash for the camera which means it is meant for taking photos and videos in low light situations. On the backside of the Obi SF1, there is a 13 MP Sony IMX214 sensor with an f/2.0 aperture. It can shoot 1920×1080 videos and it also enjoys features such as OptiZoom multi-frame super-resolution. The shutter speed of the back camera is average and it captures photos with a good amount of detail and sharpness. Modes such as Chroma flash and Macro shots are the best part of camera software because they help to get better shots.
Software and Features
Obi SF1 comes with a gyrosensor which means it can support VR headsets and Google Cardboard. Most phones in this price range don’t have gyro sensors, so Obi SF1 definitely gets a thumbs up for that. In the case of software, there is Android 5.0.1 Lollipop and the company’s own skin on top. However, Android stock UI can be turned on from inside the settings.
The software on Obi SF1 has some interesting features as well. In order to provide a good sound experience, there are features such as Dolby audio and Profile Manager. These help to get granular customization, sound profile, tuning, and better result for music or videos.
In the review, we found that there are some lags in the software. We can say it is the software because the hardware of Obi Worldphone SF1 is very powerful. Even the base 2 GB RAM model is powerful because it has the same Snapdragon 615 processor. Therefore, we request the company to roll out a new update to remove the UI lag. They should also put the kernel in public so that developers can root and create custom ROM.
Conclusion
Obi Worldphone SF1 is a complete package of high-end hardware tagged at an affordable and reasonable price. No phone in the market right now gives an octa-core processor, FHD display, and Gorilla Glass at this price. The base 16 GB onboard storage is also enough for regular usage for most people. We also did a lot of gaming with this device and the performance was satisfactory. The games ran at medium settings with some heating.
So in our review, the main issue was heating and laggy UI. For all other things such as camera, sound, features, display, design, build and experience it is a very good phone for the price. So, if you want to know more or buy Obi devices you can check stores at their official site and visit retail stores in the market. We are enjoying this new handset and we will keep on testing other upcoming models as well.
