OPPO’s Joy needs to watch Obi’s Wolverine in Africa

Riding on their significant success in the Middle Eastern markets in a short time, Obi Mobiles, led by former Pepsi Co and Apple CEO John Sculley, launched its eight smartphone-models in Kenya and Tanzania. African market already has established players like Huawei, Samsung, HTC, Tecno and OPPO, therefore it would be interesting to see how Obi manages to create its footprints in the region. At the end, it is the quality of the product that provides credibility. In this context, we have been comparing various Obi models with the competing models to examine the relative quality of the products. In the current review, we have put Obi’s Wolverine S501 up against OPPO’s Joy R1001, with the intention to help customers make a smart choice.

At the very outset we realize that there is visible different in the size and weight of the two devices. With physical dimensions of 124x63x9.9mm OPPO’s Joy comes out as a smaller device than Obi’s Wolverine with dimensions 144x73x9.6mm. On one hand, this difference in physical dimensions reflects in the weight of the devices, making Obi’s Wolverine (167gms) about 42gms heavier than OPPO’s Joy (125gms). On the other hand, it shows up in the size of the display screen, which is an inch smaller in case of OPPO’s Joy (4inch) than Obi’s Wolverine (5inch). However, in both cases the resolution is about the same; Obi’s Wolverine comes with 480x854 Pixels where as OPPO’s Joy with 480x800 Pixels. Therefore, the trade off is between a bigger and heavier device with a larger display and a relatively shorter and lighter device with an inch of smaller display. While both the devices come in black and white, Obi’s Wolverine has this unique leather-like texture at the back. 

At the performance level, OPPO’s Joy seems to lag behind as it comes with an operating system that runs on a slightly outdated Android 4.2 (ColorOS) compared to Obi’s Wolverine that runs on Android 4.4 KitKat. However, OPPO’s JOY takes a leg up over Obi’s Wolverine in terms of processor where JOY has a Cortex A7 1.3GHz dual-core processor while Wolverine has a MediaTek MTK6572 1.2GHz dual-core processor. But then JOY loses out on RAM with 512 MB RAM when Wolverine can boast of 1GB RAM. In terms of storage, both the devices have same internal memory of 4GB and an expandable memory upto 32 GB through microSD. While JOY (with 1700mAh) has a slight upper hand in terms of battery capacity over Wolverine (with 1500 mAh), a relatively advanced OS and larger RAM provide Obi’s Wolverine an edge over OPPO’s JOY. However, significant difference shows up again in the cameras; while both have the same 0.3MP front cameras, Wolverine comes with 5MP rear camera and Joy with 3MP.

In terms of Connectivity, both smartphones support Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n). But JOY additionally provides Wi-Fi Hotspot while Wolverine does not. Both devices provide 2 SIM card slots, but JOY has 1 Regular SIM card slot and 1 Micro SIM card Slot which means the consumer is forced to change their existing SIM card(s) to Regular or Micro. Wolverine on the other hand allows users to use either Regular or Micro SIM in the same slot. In terms of Wireless Networks both Wolverine and JOY are available only on 3G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and WCDMA 2100 MHz. Additionally, Wolverine is also available on 3G: WCDMA 850 MHz.

In this context, we finally look at the prices in the Kenya market, where Obi’s Wolverine is priced at around KSh12,000 where as OPPO’s JOY is priced around KSh11,000, a difference of about KSh1000. Given several advantages of a wider screen-size, higher OS, bigger RAM, superior rear camera, and the ability to use any form of SIM (Micro or SIM) without any hindrance, Wolverine’s slightly higher price could be justified. However, a smart customer could make the deal even smarter by pushing for a better price bargain.