First Impressions: Obi Worldphone SF1 brings fresh design and performance into budget segment

Obi Mobile is not a name that would come to one's mind while shopping for smartphones in India but that's about to change. The company is planning to launch its affordable, Worldphone SF1 in India, where demand for budget devices is still high. Amid reports of the handset's immiment debut in India this month, we got our hands on the SF1 and here's what we think of it.

The Obi Worldphone SF1 is big on design and performance. The company has worked really hard to stand out from the crowd. The handset packs industry's leading specs and a unique design unseen in other phones. 

Design and display

As mentioned earlier, Obi has mainly emphasised on the design aspect of the Worldphone SF1 which is an important factor in a successful smartphone. Obi has worked with Ammunition Design Studio for the design of the Worldphone SF1, which is treated with both metal and polycarbonate to offer a balanced architecture.

The Worldphone SF1 boasts of a sealed unibody with metal caps on the top and bottom and polycarbonate back. The handset's rounded edges offer a comfortable grip and the display is well protected with scratch resistant floating glass display, which makes it easier for swiping across the screen. The volume rocker keys along with the power/lock button are placed on the left hand side of the device, which is weird, as most smartphones have these buttons on the right. The SIM card tray, which also houses the microSD card slot, is located on the right. 

The SF1 features a 5-inch Full HD in-cell IPS JDI screen with 443ppi that offers better viewing angles and crisp images. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 4, the latest technology by Corning used in flagship devices. There is also oleophobic coating on the display to prevent any fingerprint smudges on the handset.

Camera

The Worldphone SF1 has a pretty impressive camera sensor on both sides. The rear-facing camera comes with a 13-megapixel Sony EXMOR RS sensor with f/2.0 aperture and LED flash. It has several camera modes such as panorama, HDR and also records videos in Full HD at 30fps. On the front side of the device, there is a 5-megapixel sensor and interestingly has a LED flash to help you take great selfies in low light conditions.

The camera UI is pretty straight-forward. The capture button takes the centre spot at the bottom of the UI and users can switch to video or panorama from the lower right side. The gallery shortcut is placed on the lower left hand side of the device.

Main camera functions, settings and modes are arranged on the top of the UI. Users can switch between Auto mode, Portrait, Landscape, Backlight and more from the top left. The gear icon on the top right lets you into the camera settings to change resolution, storage location, ISO, exposure, HDR, contrast and lot more. There is an icon for flash on the top, which toggles between on, off and auto. Users can also switch to selfie camera mode by tapping the top center button on the UI and also add filters by tapping the wand symbol right next to it.

The Worldphone SF1 also has unique features to improve photography using UbiFocus, ChromeFlash and OptiZoom.

Performance

While it may be too soon to conclude comment on the performance, the onboard specs paint an impressive image. The Worldphone SF1 is powered by a 64-bit 1.5Ghz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC, Adreno 405 GPU, 2GB/3GB RAM and 16GB/32GB storage. The SF1 runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with company's own Lifespeed UI. The handset is guaranteed to get Android 6.0 Marshmallow in the future.

Obi has also integrated Dolby Audio Surround Sound 5.1 in the Worldphone SF1 to produce clear audio and the dual microphones have active noise cancellation for better communication. Other notable features in the Worldphone SF1 include dual SIM slots, microSD card slot and 4G LTE support.

Battery

The Worldphone SF1 packs a 3,000mAh battery, equipped with Quick Charge tech. The company claims the handset to offer 28 hours of talktime.