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Obi Worldphone
Silicon Valley smartphone manufacturer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Obi Worldphone, previously Obi Mobiles, was a Silicon Valley smartphone manufacturer subsdiaries of Etisalat founded in 2014 by Neeraj Chauhan, Shane Maine, Gordon McMillan, and John Sculley.[1] Obi Worldphone manufactured smartphones aimed at the emerging markets[3] rather than very competitive developed government.[4][5]
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History
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The company was launched as Obi Mobiles in 2014. Sculley saw a gap in the market for well-designed budget handsets and got in contact with former Director of Industrial Design, Robert Brunner (now a co-founder of Ammunition Design Group) who came up with the raised screen design found on all Obi smartphones.[6] Ammunition subsequently designed the chassis and operating system skin the phones run on, "Obi Lifespeed".[7]
Obi Mobiles started operations in India in July 2014. Following an unsuccessful launch, the company withdrew from India at the beginning of 2015 (with plans re-entering at the end of the year) and relaunched the brand as Obi Worldphone shortly after.[8]
The newly branded company launched two of their pioneer low-cost smartphones on 27 August 2015.[9] Both models were based upon Android as their operating system.[9] Their third phone, the MV1, was announced in February 2016, and was released to Asian, African, Latin American and European markets in March 2016.[10][11]
In July 2015, Obi had a 5.7% smartphone market share in the UAE, making it the company's strongest global market.[8]
In September 2017, Sculley distanced himself from Obi and said his name was used for PR only.[1]
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Products
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SF1
Launched on 27 August 2015, this phone with a raised 5-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels at a PPI of 443 pixels per inch (PPI).[12] The phone comes with a self-developed fork of the Android Operating System called "Obi Lifespeed".[7][13] The device also features Dolby Audio multi-channel audio, noise cancellation, and utilizes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, an Adreno 405 GPU, and a 3000 mAh battery. It can access 4G networks. The device comes in 32 GB + 3 GB / 16 GB + 2 GB (respectively Storage and RAM) combinations,[13] and a choice of black or white. The initial retail price for the device is $199 and comes unlocked.[14]
SJ1.5
This device was launched at the same time as the SF1, and also has a 5-inch touchscreen display, however a lower resolution, lack of 4G, and lack of some luxuries lends this phone a cheaper $129 retail price.[14] The device is all plastics in a range of colors and comes with 16 GB of storage and a 3,000 milliamps battery.[15][16] Both the SF1 and SJ1.5 feature a dual SIM tray.[16]
MV1
The MV1 has a 5-inch Gorilla Glass 3 display with 1280 × 720 (HD) resolution; it runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of storage. It features a dual SIM tray.
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Awards
In 2015, Obi Worldphone's SF1 was voted the fifth-best smartphone available in Vietnam in VNExpress' "TechAwards 2015" (Sản phẩm Công nghệ xuất sắc 2015).[17][18][19]
See also
References
External links
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