Can the Octopus fight the budget sharks?

The story of Obi Mobiles—a smartphone company floated by former Apple CEO John Sculley and headed in India by the capable Ajay Sharma— is in many ways the story of how drastically the Indian smartphone market has changed over the last three years.

The art of developing, designing and manufacturing a smartphone for India has become very much like cooking a three-course meal. There is a certain recipe to be followed when it comes to developing the actual smartphone itself and a list of required ingredients when it comes to taking the device to market; a snappy brand name, extensive marketing (aided by e-commerce partners) and a brand ambassador.

Tick all the boxes correctly, and a company stands a decent chance of selling a decent number of devices. Do a little market research and you could sell as much as Micromax and Karbonn.

Obi Mobiles best personifies this trend, and is the first to be backed by a person of Mr. Sculley’s stature, and therefore deserves a closer look. We at Technophile dive into the flagship Octopus S520 and mid-end Obi Wolverine smartphones.

Design and build

A quick look at the 5-inch Obi Octopus will reveal much that is familiar and much that is taken from the Book of Android Smartphone Design. The generic, plasticky candy bar structure comes with generous bezels, volume controls on the left, a power button on the right and a micro-USB port at the bottom.

The general look-and-feel is minimalistic to the point of being quite plain—the back of the phone looks very similar to the iPhone 5S and 6 but doesn’t manage to convey the same amount of refinement. The Octopus is simply uninspiring in this way. Where it does surprise, however, is in terms of weight. The device is light, even with the battery in it, and therefore its handling has a general, non-clunky airy quality.

The smartphone’s claim to fame is that it is the cheapest (₹11,990) octa-core device in the market and it doesn’t disappoint. Running multiple applications simultaneously—and cycling and switching quickly— did not throw up any glaring performance glitches or freezing. (The Quadrant benchmark score was 16,876.)

Only while running graphic-intensive games does any sort of noticeable strain, with regards to performance, show up.

What helps is the adequate 1GB of RAM but also that the MediaTek octa-core processor (clocked at 1.7GHZ) is paired with a Mali-450 MP4 GPU. The 5-inch HD 720p display is no slouch either: it comes with great viewing angles, above-average colour reproduction and stands up well when in the sunlight.

What adds to the phone’s general performance is that it adds very little to the stock version of Android (4.4.2 KitKat) that it comes with. This is a welcome departure from many other new entrants, who often try to add bloat as a ‘differentiator’.

The camera—8 megapixel rear and 2 megapixel front-facing—and 1800 mAh battery are where there is clear room for improvement, which sources tell us will soon be sorted out.

While the camera application itself is fairly basic, the picture quality is decent, with the camera performing above-average when it comes to outdoor shots. There isn’t too much loss in terms of detail and colour, and the camera does surprisingly well indoors provided there is the bare amount of lighting required.

The battery, on the other hand, is clearly not enough for the job nor does it deserve to be clubbed in with otherwise great technical specifications. Our tests showed that, with heavy usage (calling, texting, regular e-mailing and gaming), the Octopus’ charge lasts for barely half a working day. With conservative usage, potential buyers may be able to stretch it out to six or seven hours.

However, as mentioned earlier, our sources at Obi Mobiles tell us that the company plans on pushing out an upgraded Octopus device in the next few weeks. According to people with direct knowledge of the matter, the rear camera will receive a major boost, going up to 13 megapixel from the current 8 megapixel. The battery issue should also be sorted as the new device will come with a 2100 mAh battery (currently 1800 mAh).

While the new Octopus may be priced slightly higher than the current ₹11,990 price tag, there is little doubt that it will be much more attractive then higher priced and similarly specced competitors such as the HTC Desire 616. Indeed, potential buyers are unlikely to find a better bang-for-the-buck anywhere else.

What this does not resolve though is the device’s generic and uninspiring design. We live at a time where sub-₹15,000 smartphones come with absolutely breathtaking design and build quality. The Octopus smartphone, however, isn’t quite there yet.

₹11,990

Love - Great performance, light weight

Hate - Boring, plain design. Average build quality.