Review: obi worldphone sf1 is a refreshing android smartphone

WHAT’S GOOD? It’s certainly _hatke_ when it comes to design and aesthetics. Right from the clear acrylic box, reminiscent of the iPod touch of yore, that suspends the phone seemingly in

mid-air, to the minimalist box contents (charger and USB cable, no headphones), the designed in San Francisco SF1 certainly makes a great first impression. Look deeper though, and there’s

certainly a derivative quality about the phone design – a touch of the Mi3 around the top, machined iPhone-style speaker grille, an overall Lumia vibe, but it comes together cohesively in

the final product. The raised display helps the phone to stand out, although I have my fears about how this arguably unnecessary exposure would fare, should the phone ever meet the ground,

face-first. Gorilla Glass 4 can only do so much. The front of the SF1 is dominated by a 5-inch full-HD IPS display, which does a good job in terms of sharpness, contrast and colors, and

there’s the oleophobic treatment so fingerprints are kept at bay, somewhat. Battery life too is a strength on the SF1, with the 3000 mAh battery lasting a full day of use – email-pulling,

social-pinging, video-watching and all – plus there’s Quick Charge to juice up the battery in a jiff. Worth mentioning is the audio quality on the SF1, with the Dolby enhancements via the

Dolby Audio app discernibly changing the audio experience during games, music and movie, as long as you pair it with a good set of headphones. Rounding out the specs is a competent

Snapdragon 615 processor with 32GB storage and 3GB of RAM (a cheaper 16GB/2GB variant is also available), both allowing for 64 GB of expandable storage at the cost of the second SIM,

courtesy its shared hybrid SIM slot. The Lifespeed UI running atop Android Lollipop 5.0.2 is bereft of unwanted bloatware too. It would seem like serious hardware for this price, except…