Former Apple CEO John Sculley launches two Android phones

A startup co-founded by former Apple CEO John Sculley has launched two Android phones targeted at mid-range customers in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Sculley was CEO of Apple from 1983 to 1993, famously leaving Pepsi-Cola after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs asked him, "do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?"

Sculley's new company, Obi Worldphone, launched its SF1 and SJ1.5 phones (named after San Francisco and San Jose even though they're targeted at developing markets outside the US) "to address the market need between high-design smartphones at high prices and generic smartphones at low prices," the company's announcement on Wednesday said.

"Obi has taken the best of Silicon Valley—innovations in design, state-of-the-art technology and high standards for manufacturing—and fused them into beautiful, powerful tools at attractive prices," Sculley said in the announcement.

Both phones use Android Lollipop with a custom user interface. Here's a look at the SF1, the flagship device:

The SF1 runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, and its processor is a 1.5GHz 8-core Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 with an Adreno 405 GPU. It has a 5-inch display with resolution of 1920x1080, Corning Gorilla Glass 4, a 13-megapixel camera, and a front-facing 5-megapixel camera. Wi-Fi is dual-band and goes up to 802.11n, while cellular connectivity includes GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, HSPA+, and LTE. The battery is 3,000 mAh.

The SF1 costs $199 for a version with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage, or $249 for 3GB RAM and 32GB storage. A microSD slot allows expansion of up to another 64GB on both models.

Obi says that the SF1 has a "premium feel [that] comes from its reinforced fiberglass body and metal accents at the top and bottom of the phone." The camera uses a few Qualcomm technologies to help users take better pictures. Qualcomm ChromaFlash lets the phone snap two photos quickly, one with a flash and one without, using both to create a single image with the brightness of the flash picture and color accuracy of the other. Other Qualcomm tools let users select the focus after taking a picture and "zoom in at a resolution beyond normal digital zoom levels," also after the photo is taken.

Now, here's a look at Obi's SJ1.5:

The SJ1.5 is lower-end, running only on GSM and HSPA, but has a newer version of Android, version 5.1. Its 5-inch display has a resolution of 1280x720 and Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The processor is a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6580. Wi-Fi goes up to 802.11n, but there was no mention of dual-band support.

The battery is also 3,000 mAh. There's 1GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage, with an additional 32GB supported via microSD. The primary camera is 8 megapixels, while the front-facing camera is 5 megapixels.

The SJ1.5 costs $129.

Obi phones will be available in October in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Pakistan, Turkey, and India. The company is aiming to get phones to 50 to 70 high-growth countries by 2017.

Listing image by Obi Mobiles