Obi Worldphone is a Silicon Valley tech company set up by ex-Apple CEO John Sculley – the man who notoriously fired Steve Jobs, before being let go himself.
Initially intended for developing markets, the Obi MV1 is now in the UK and will cost you £119. There's no news of a US or Australian release date yet.
That's a cheap phone, but the budget end of the market is packed with rival handsets from both established brands – for example the Motorola Moto E – and from newer companies, such as the Wileyfox Swift. So can the MV1 hold its own against such tough competition?
Design
The Obi MV1 looks different to every other smartphone you can buy right now, but it's for all the wrong reasons – although parts of the design feel slightly iPhone-ish, this is nothing like the things of beauty Sculley's former employer creates.
There's no denying the design of the MV1 is unique – it takes a lot of elements from other phones and combines them into one strange hybrid.
The main body of the phone is reminiscent of a budget Microsoft Lumia, and it looks like the display has been plonked on top, and it's raised above the body.
The marketing material from Obi reads: "It's a shape that is so unique for a smartphone that you'll always know which way your MV1 is placed in your pocket or bag."
Personally, I don't go through my day fretting about which way up my phone is in my bag – and if I really need to know I'll reach in for the volume rocker and know instantly.
And while this design feature may be to some people's taste, no one I've shown it to has particularly enjoyed the look of it.
The back of the phone isn't much nicer – it's a fingerprint magnet – but the rear panel can be removed easily to get inside the handset, which is something you don't always get on a smartphone these days. It's easy enough to pull this off without feeling like it's going to snap as you do so.
This gives you access to the dual SIM slots, a microSD slot and the removable battery. The panel itself doesn't feel premium though, and it picks up greasy fingerprints very quickly.
The bottom edges of the phone feel nice in the hand as they're rounded off; however this highlights the fact that the top edges are squared and quite sharp, and don't feel – or look – good at all.
You get the impression that Obi has tried a bit too hard to create a phone that looks 'different' – although if by 'different' you mean 'not particularly good-looking' then it's succeeded.
It could be argued that it's not easy to make an attractive-looking phone in this price bracket, but the Wileyfox Storm proves that just because a phone is cheap it doesn't have to be ugly.
The screen on the MV1 is pretty impressive considering the price of the phone. It's a 5-inch display, and while you may be a little disappointed to find out it's not Full HD, in all honesty 720p is enough here.
I never really missed the level of pixel density you get on flagship phones. Picture quality when streaming video was absolutely fine, and when you're spending this little money you couldn't really expect much more.
My main problem with the display on the MV1 is that it's too dark. On full brightness the phone is acceptable, but I like to leave the auto brightness mode on when testing a phone, so that I won't have to fiddle with the settings as the ambient light changes.
The auto-brightness did kick in, but it took quite a while to do so, and then it would make the screen too dark to see properly.
Another key feature of the Obi MV1 is that is has 4G connectivity. This isn't quite the deal-breaker these days that it was a few years ago, but it's still a relatively recent innovation at the cheaper end of the smartphone spectrum.
It means you can get high-speed internet on your Obi MV1, and I've found connection speeds to be fast whenever I'm using the phone in areas with good signal.
You can also use two SIM cards simultaneously on the Obi MV1, enabling you to use two different numbers.
This is a much bigger thing for customers in developing markets than in the UK and Europe, but it could prove useful if you're constantly switching between two phones, one for business and another for pleasure.
Another key feature of the Obi MV1 is that is has 4G connectivity. This isn't quite the deal-breaker these days that it was a few years ago, but it's still a relatively recent innovation at the cheaper end of the smartphone spectrum.
It means you can get high-speed internet on your Obi MV1, and I've found connection speeds to be fast whenever I'm using the phone in areas with good signal.
You can also use two SIM cards simultaneously on the Obi MV1, enabling you to use two different numbers.
This is a much bigger thing for customers in developing markets than in the UK and Europe, but it could prove useful if you're constantly switching between two phones, one for business and another for pleasure.
Rather, this is Qualcomm's latest low-end processor, so if you're a power user who likes to run a lot of apps simultaneously and play latest and most demanding games, the MV1 won't be the phone for you.
I played quite a few games on the phone, and it really struggled with anything graphically intensive –Real Racing 3 was especially laggy.
The phone also heated up to a point where I struggled to hold onto it when playing games. Seriously: don't buy this if you're after a powerhouse phone.
If gaming isn't your thing, however, the MV1 may still work for you. I found that the phone struggled with several apps, with loading times taking quite a bit longer than I would have liked, but if speed isn't a major concern for you it could still be worth considering.
Geekbench 3 results aren't a pretty sight, though, when you compare the MV1 to some of the competition. The MV1 came out with a decidedly average multi-core result of 1074.
The Motorola Moto E – which boasts half as much RAM at 1GB, and is now more than a year old – returned a much more respectable 1421, while the Wileyfox Swift, which only costs a bit more than the MV1 at £129, managed a score of 1330.
It just proves that you can get a lot more for your money at this price point than what the Obi MV1 is offering.
Then there's the Cyanogen 12.1.1 software, which is based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. This is essentially a open source version of Android that gives you additional customization options, but unfortunately it's quite outdated.
I'd hoped for Android Marshmallow on a phone this new, but Obi Worldphone hasn't updated us on if or when the MV1 will get upgraded to the latest version.
I don't feel that Cyanogen adds much to the look of the software on this phone, and personally I'd prefer it to run stock Android.
That said, there's not much about Cyanogen that offends the eye, and everything works as naturally as you'd hope – and it looks a lot better than some custom UIs from companies such as Huawei and Sony.
In terms of storage you get 16GB built into the MV1, with microSD support for up to 64GB. The software on the phone takes up 4.3GB straight away, leaving you with just over 11GB to play with, so if you want anything more than the bare minimum of storage you'll need a microSD card.
Some phones now come with support for up to 200GB cards, though, so Obi isn't being overly generous with 64GB. But, if you're not going to be downloading many apps or your entire music collection, this isn't going to be an issue.
Battery life
Battery performance from the Obi MV1 is disappointing – there's no other way of putting it. The Obi MV1 comes with a 2500mAh battery pack, which should be enough to power a small processor and a 5-inch 720p screen.
And a phone that doesn't have all that much to power should be able to make it through to the end of the day given moderate usage, but that wasn't the case during my time with the phone.
I regularly had to put the phone on charge while at my desk, and on one particularly busy day I found myself down to 15% battery by 3pm, which just isn't good enough.
Looking over my battery stats, most of the time the screen was taking up all of the power, and the apps weren't eating up much juice.
One thing I find annoying here is that the battery level percentage isn't displayed alongside the battery icon in the notifications bar by default. Personally I like to see a number as well, so that I can check my juice at a glance – you can enable this and change the icon style, but it requires a fair bit of delving around in the menus.
Running the Obi MV1 through our video test confirmed the poor battery performance. We play a 90-minute video, leave connectivity options on and turn the display up to full brightness.
At the end of the test the MV1 had 69% of its battery remaining. The Moto E, by comparison, had 78% of its charge left.
There are no fast-charging features to make up for this lack of stamina. At this price point I wouldn't expect fast charging ordinarily, but it would have been a welcome, and arguable essential feature here. Charging times via the micro USB cable are about average.
One thing about the battery that will appeal to some users is the fact that it's removable – you can hot-swap out the battery if you invest in a spare, meaning that recharging will be less of a worry.
That's the theory, at least – the problem is trying to get hold of a spare battery, as Obi Worldphone doesn't make it particularly clear on its website where you can buy one.
As with other features, you wouldn't expect to get a world-beating phone on a £120 camera, and the Obi MV1 is in no danger of exceeding expectations.
It's not a total loss though – it comes with an 8MP rear camera, which can actually take some surprisingly good photos.
There's face detection software, which makes it easier to grab accurately focused shots of people, but I found that tap-to-focus really struggled on the MV1.
In theory you can tap on the screen to set the focus point, but the camera never focused on what I wanted it to – I would sometimes spend ages tapping, and it either focused on something else, or didn't focus at all.
If you just want to take a quick shot the MV1 doesn't make it that easy – and that's an issue when all the competing handsets are strong on autofocus.
I did find the resolution of the images quite impressive though; you won't be embarrassed to upload these to social media, although you also won't be troubling many photography competition juries.
You can also record Full HD video at 30fps. That's all you're really going to need from the MV1, and the quality was pretty good.
The process of shooting video is confusing though. As soon as you tap the video camera button the MV1 starts recording, where most other phones require you to first tap the video icon, and then press a dedicated record button.
The quality of the video is the most important thing, though and you won't be disappointed unless you're looking for 4K levels of quality – in which case you won't be buying this phone.
On the front of the phone there's a 2MP camera. After using a variety of cheap but decent-quality Chinese handsets recently I'd forgotten how rubbish a properly low-end selfie camera can be, and I was immediately disappointed when I tried to take a selfie on the MV1.
The camera's field of view is very cramped, so it's hard to get everything – or everyone – that you want into the shot. On top of that, every image I did manage to take turned out grainy. That's just a fault of phones in this price bracket though, and if you're want a phone this cheap you'll be lucky to get a good selfie shooter.
Camera samples
As you can probably tell, I'm not a fan of the Obi MV1. A few years ago the MV1 would have really impressed me in this price bracket, but the fact is that the budget phone world has moved on.
With cheaper Chinese manufacturers making inroads into western markets, and companies like Wileyfox and Motorola making strong cheap phones, it's a tough environment – and the MV1 isn't quite up to the challenge.
The number one selling point of the Obi MV1 is the price. It's cheaper than some of the alternatives in this market, but the problem is the competition it's surrounded by.
Paying £119 for a smartphone certainly makes it easy to just lay down all the money on day one – but there are phones like the Wileyfox Swift and the Motorola Moto E to compete with – and those phones manage to more than the Obi MV1, and do it with a little more grace.
I do think the MV1 is correctly priced though, I just wish Obi had managed to put a bit of extra spec in here for that money.
We liked
The price of the Obi MV1 is certainly my favourite part – getting this much phone for £119 is a good deal, and it's cheaper than some of the competition.
It also comes with some handy features, including 4G connectivity, which is not every phone in this price bracket can offer.
Dual-SIM support may be useful for some people as well. Then there's the removable battery, a feature that big phone brands seem to be increasingly ditching.
On top of that I enjoy the camera on the MV1. It certainly has its issues, and this isn't the best camera phone you can get right now, but it's a decent option in this price bracket.
We disliked
I respect Obi for attempting something brave with the MV1. They've changed the design from the traditional black block, but I just don't think it's worked out well.
When I first picked up the phone I wasn't impressed. No one I've shown it to has got excited about it, and my opinion hasn't really changed from day one.
It's just not a good-looking smartphone, and that's a big turn-off when handsets like the Motorola Moto E and OnePlus X look so great.
Battery life on the Obi MV1 isn't acceptable either. Cheap phones are all well and good, but they shouldn't have a free pass to die halfway through the day.
If anything, there's not all that much to power, so this phone should easily be able to survive to the end of the day, rather than dying after a few hours.
Software on the Obi MV1 doesn't add much to the experience. I don't see why Obi would go with Cyanogen over traditional Android software – and a new phone these days should really boast Android 6 Marshmallow.
Verdict
There's a lot of choice out there in the cheap-but-powerful-phone market, and I don't feel the Obi MV1 is up to scratch. It may look like an interesting proposition for the price, but there are lots of other better options out there.
Many of the features on the MV1 aren't quite there, and although I'd like to see a Silicon Valley company do well in the cheap phone business the MV1 isn't the handset to make that happen.
Whether the Sculley-led company produces another handset in the future which blows the opposition of the water remains to be seen.
For now though, Obi Worldphone is probably one to watch, but the MV1 isn't the one to buy.
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