Interesting design, attractive price
The former chief executive of Apple and Pepsi brings his first Obi Worldphone offering to Bangkok
A smartphone from the San Francisco-based Obi Worldphone, the SF1 looks sleek and slim with a uni-metal body and a 5-inch Full HD screen protected by tough and scratch-proof Corning Gorrilla Glass 4.
Co-founded by former Apple (and Pepsi) chief executive, Obi Worldphone works in close collaboration with Ammunition, a design studio also based in San Francisco whose clients include Adobe Systems and Beats by Dre.
An attractive phone with a black body, the SFI features a floating glass display design and measures just 146x74.8x8mm. The body is 7.8mm thick including the 0.2mm floating display.
The SF1 uses 5-inch JDI in-cell IPS display with 1080x1920 pixel resolution with 443 ppi. It’s bright and colourful and is good for watching videos and viewing photos.
The SF1 is powered by Qualcomm MSM8938 Snapdragon 615 64-bit octa-core processor running at 1.5 GHz. It uses Adreno 405 GPU for handling graphics tasks.
Obi Worldphone SF1 is sold in Thailand by online shopping site Lazada and comes with 2 gigabytes of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. Interestingly, I was given the model with 3GB RAM and 32 GB storage to test.
The SF1 runs on Android OS 5.0.2. It has dual SIM slots – one for Micro SIM and the other for Nano SIM. The Nano SIM slot can also house a microSD card that expands storage by up to 64GB.
I had fun using the SF1. Its menus and touch screen were responsive. Games and video clips ran fast and smoothly.
As the model sent didn’t support my TrueMove H LTE 4G account, I tested it on Wi-Fi connection. Lazada Thailand, however, insists that the model it distributes supports 4G connections of all operators in Thailand.
The SF1 is good for watching video because it has Dolby Audio surround technology to simulate placements of surround sound speakers when used with good-quality headphones. The Dolby Surround also has a dialogue enhancer feature, allowing you to hear your conversation partner clearly even in busy environments.
Best of all, the SF1 supports full high resolution audio files of FLAC 24bit/192 kHz format and it played the high-res songs smoothly during the test. I tested it with Sony’s MDR-1ABT and I was impressed by the music quality, which had excellent detail and a powerful bass.
The SF1 uses dual microphones as part of its active noise cancellation so that your conversation partner will always be able to hear you well.
It also comes with a 13-megapixel main camera and a |5-MP front camera both with LED flash. The main camera has good image quality as it uses Sony IMX214 EXMOR RS image sensor and its lens has f/2.0 aperture. Special features include UbiFocus and ChromaFlash.
The UbiFocus lets the camera take five distinct images at different focal points and then processes and combines them into one final image, which allows you to selectively focus the final output.
The ChromaFlash lets the camera quickly take two photos – one with flash and the other without. The brightness is then taken out from the one with flash and the image is painted with colour accuracy from the other, resulting in a well-balanced shot.
The SF1 has a large battery of 3,000 mAh with Quick Charge 1.0 technology.
Obi Worldphone SF1 is available from Lazada Thailand for Bt7,290.
Key Specs
- OS: Android 5.0.2
- Networks: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz; 4G LTE: FDD B3 1800 MHz & TDD B40 2300 MHz
- Chipset: Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 64-bit Octa-core 1.5 GHz processor; Adreno 405 GPU
- Display: 5-inch JDI in-cell IPS panel with 1080x1920 pixels, protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4
- Memory: 2 GB DDR3 RAM
- Storage: 16 GB eMMC, expandable with microSD card by up to 64GB
- Cameras: 13MP main camera with Sony EXMOR IMX214 sensor, f/2.0; 5 MP front camera
- SIM: Dual SIM (1 Micro, 1 Nano/microSD)
- Wireless connection: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
- Sensors: Accelerometer, Proximity, Magnetic, Gyro, ALS (Ambient Light Sensor)
- Battery: 3,000 mAh Li-Po battery with Quick Charge 1.0
- Dimensions146x74x8mm
- Weight: 147g
