Obi Worldphone MV1 Smartphone now launches in the UK for £99

After the International debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the MV1 finally hits the UK today at a price of £99 available on the official website & also on Amazon UK. The phone was initially made available in the Southeast Asia followed by the Middle East & the Latin America, while it has just been launched in the United Kingdom.

Earlier Feb 22: Obi Worldphone, the San-Francisco-based firm has launched their third smartphone at the MWC stage in Barcelona. The company, which is the brainchild of the Ex-Apple executive John Sculley, has tied up with Ammunition, a design firm also based out of San-Francisco for their latest MV1 Smartphone. This firm has designed some of the most interesting products in the market like Beats by Dre, Square, and LYFT Glowstache.

The MV1 smartphone comes with a polycarbonate body that has an anti-fade coating, and it has the similar smudge-free matte finish on the back and the floating glass display like the SF1 smartphone, the mid- ranger. This new handset is much of mid-range as well but little toned down specifications. At a 5-inch real estate, it is quite the compact device; the 720p In-cell display has a 294 PPI (Pixel Per Inch) pixel density. It would have a protection of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and anti-fingerprint oleophobic coating for that smudge-free display.

“This is an industry with 200 different brands vying for consumers’ attention. There will be 1.4 billion Android phones produced in 2016 alone, so there needs to be a way to stand apart from the pack,” says Obi Worldphone Co-founder John Sculley. “The components for all these different phones are mass produced, in the same countries, and often in the exact same factories. What we’ve done with the Obi Worldphone from the very beginning is the show that it’s possible to have a beautifully designed phone that fits into your lifestyle at an accessible price without sacrificing form and technology. You don’t have to give up the style in exchange for substance. With the MV1, you can have both.” “For our markets, the design of the MV1 is a fresh, modern breath of air in a sea of sameness. Its combination of simple form, iconic outline and resolved details make it an object to be desired,” says Ammunition founder and Obi lead designer, Robert Brunner.

Under the hood is the low powered Snapdragon 212 chipset, which is a Quad-core processor from Qualcomm clocking at 1.3GHz. It would come in two variants, 1GB RAM with 16GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM with 16GB of internal storage. The storage on both the models can be expanded up to 64GB via microD card slot. It would be running on the Cyanogen OS 12.1.1 based on the Android Lollipop 5.1 version. You’ll have the option of choice whether you want a stock Lollipop 5.1 or Cyanogen OS 12.1.1.

The camera department houses an 8-megapixel image sensor on the back side, which is an OmniVision OV8865 sensor with LED Flash, Autofocus, and f/2.2 aperture. The front facing camera module is of 2-megapixel resolution; there is nothing special about it. The loudspeaker on the device supports DTS Sound with dual microphone for noise cancellation.

The MV1 smartphone from the Obi Worldphone would be available immediately in Asia and Africa while it is coming to the Latin America and Europe later in March. It would be available in three colors, Red, White and Black. The pricing for the 1GB model is at $139 while the 2GB model would cost you $149, just $10 extra.