Many companies make a great phone, like the Samsung Galaxy S III and the Oppo N1, and they knock it completely out of the park, in both software and hardware design. The Galaxy S III, though old, is still used (and specifically bought) by consumers today, because it’s more affordable and still a great phone to use daily. The issue is, with such a popular and desired device, other companies might try to do what you did. Now, most major manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, Apple, Nokia, and LG won’t outright copy a design or software aspect, but make it their own with their personal tweaks.
But sometimes, you get those devices with just enough done to them, inside or out, to make them not worth suing over. Today’s special is the Oppo N1 Mini that actually isn’t. It’s called the Falcon S451, and it’s from Obi Mobiles. If you have never heard of the manufacturer, then you’re like most non-residents of India, since they target the Indian teens to get them a great mobile experience. The company, fun fact, was actually founded by the guy that left Apple, Inc. in the 1990s after earning the title of (wait for it) ‘the guy that fired Steve Jobs’. Guess he wanted out of that firestorm of Apple’s later success huh?
Anyway, the company has a nice set of phones, which likely more than satisfy the needs of an everyday Indian both functionally and aesthetically. The Falcon S451 is, by the looks of it, a renamed and lesser-specced Oppo N1 Mini. The Falcon, other than its aircraft-sounding name, a 4.5-inch 960 by 540 pixel display, a dual-core 1.3 Ghz MediaTek MT6572 processor backed by 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of internal storage. It’s also got a 2200 mAh battery and Android 4.2, Jelly Bean, inside. That doesn’t sound bad, right? For a phone that just needs to function and install and run apps, that works fine. The specifications aren’t the important part for this argument though.
Remember how the N1 had the then-new swiveling camera mechanism that let the high resolution back-facing camera swivel around to be a selfie-addict’s best friend. The mechanism flowed down into the smaller sister device with a Mini name amendment, and the swivel camera is now the hallmark of the N family of Oppo devices, which is all fine and dandy. But, see, you can’t use one of those special, unique ‘nobody else has really had the guts or talent to pull that off’ features on a device not made by the company, or at least not marketed as such. But that’s what Obi Mobiles has done with the N1 Mini, and we should say the Falcon S451. Yes, they’re the same phone… Ouch. Just, no Obi.
The N1 Mini / Falcon has a swiveling 8 megapixel camera, so that’s nice enough. It’s just kind of ‘smh’ (that’s ‘shake my head’ for those that hate or forget those silly multi-letter abbreviations used online today) material put out for us to see. But it’s not officially on the company’s website yet, so that will come later obviously. But, in the meantime, what is the worst rebranding of a device you’ve ever heard of or seen? Have you ever bought one of these devices and used it, regardless of the fact? Let us know down below (also, rebranding within the same company is fine too, so if you’ve got one for that instance, then go ahead and share that too).