The Commodore Callback 8020 smart flip phone

Posted by Audiophilip 3 days ago

The Commodore Callback 8020 smart flip phone(www.wired.me)

88 points | 62 comments

recursivedoubts 3 hours ago|

Regarding the price: the reality with all these alternative phones (e.g. the clicks communicator) is that you are going to have to pay a premium to make them worthwhile for the manufacturers. Scale (and the spyware economy) are what allow the larger companies to produce cheaper "better" phones, so comparing a phone like this with them on price isn't super productive. If you want something different than what the masses consume you are gonna have to pay for it.

The only ones that I've seen beat this dynamic to an extent are the unihertz phones.

microtonal 16 minutes ago||

I have always been surprised that "Nokia"/HMD haven't opened up more. The have really affordable Android phones (at some point the line-up was also pretty nice) and near-stock Android. So, they seem to have the volume to make reasonably cheap phones without to much spyware/adware. Sadly, they are only supported for a very brief period and even at release they often have outdated versions.

If they collab'ed with some AOSP-based alternatives and/or Jolla, they could build up a really nice alternative market. Especially because these niche phones generally have worse quality than what HMD can offer and being a Finish company, they could play well into the European tech sovereignty story.

HarHarVeryFunny 2 hours ago|||

That unihertz "Jelly Star" with it's small size and rounded corners looks like a good prison phone choice, but still a bit of a "stretch".

aquariusDue 3 hours ago|||

Yeah, I'm actually excited about the Jolla phone supposed to launch in September. It's a bit on the expensive side but hopefully it will pave the way to a proper consumer friendly phone. Most of these phones comes with a gimmick too to make them more enticing but so far Sailfish OS is THE gimmick I'm actually excited about.

CobaltFire 1 hour ago||

My favorite phone of all time was my Nokia N9.

I would absolutely have another if there was an updated one.

mistyvales 1 hour ago||

Absolutely loved my N9! Used it for many years until I switched to Lumia series until 2018

sourcegrift 2 hours ago|||

Wonder why pine can't do this? Not dissing on commodore. With hallucinated apps, the gap is going to be really small with play store

pocksuppet 2 hours ago||

Hallucinated apps are a delusion, and Pine is just yet another random Chinese company remixing surplus hardware. They don't care what happens with the software, that's the plus and minus of it. They don't lock down the software, but nor do they actually provide any. You can run Android on Pine... if you port Android to Pine.

I hear that in China they have a lot of franken-PCs reusing recycled chips because they have all the PCB-level design and manufacturing expertise but they can't make chips. They'll take a GPU off its graphics card and solder it onto a laptop, or the reverse, stuff like that. And each design in low quantities based on what models of e-waste they can get. Pine is one of that kind of company although not nearly as extreme. A lot of their plastic cases are repurposed from other devices. The A64 chip is designed to go in set-top boxes. They don't do low-hundred quantities based on e-waste, obviously, they are set up for mass production but they're still using whatever parts they can get their hands on that are surplus to other companies' requirements. That's half the reason they discontinued so many products.

burnte 1 hour ago||

Ok, so you raise the price so the manufacturers will make it. This creates a bigger problem: users won't buy it now.

No one designs a product to get manufacturers, all they need is to make a profit.

rootsudo 46 minutes ago||

The Samsung android flips are great but all this patent pending tech is just configurations on a non basic build of google.

Like the idea, commodore never had me in its nostalgia, too young, idea is cute, t9 keyboard is workable but I disagree that it’s viable. I want to be wrong of course but

Samsung and apple using their fold flip and discipline fixes the other side. People do not want to detox. Going back to a flip won’t fix it.

Same as the glp1 drugs, people knew food was bad, didn’t stop eating. Started body shame movement. Now that movement seems to have gone silent, glp1s fixed obesity seemingly overnight.

So the question is, what is the future glp1 equilivant for digital detox, a simpler phone or a phone that makes it more complicated to get digital services isn’t it.

Then there’s the argument for price, photo quality and all. No one is going to take photos and edit on a desktop in photoshop or Lightroom. Same as for using two phones and transferring esims, their WhatsApp number, etc

radicalbyte 3 hours ago||

It has the same core spec as a $120 (delivered) Samsung phone and will cost between $500-$600 (delivered).

The C64U is an amazing achievement but it seems too early to go for the smart phone.

Hopefully there is a niche and their business plan is viable for a small number of sales.

kmoser 33 minutes ago|

They're betting that the target demographic will pay a premium for the form factor, not so much the tech specs.

msephton 2 hours ago||

The phone may not be dumb (we'll see) but the idea for new Commodore to release one is. Sorry to be so blunt.

gtowey 1 hour ago|

I bought one of their C64 repros, it was exactly what I want, I was searching ebay for original Apple ][e at the time anyway.

Why? It's going to be my kids first computer.

Computers today are so absolutely hostile as they are simply attention-sucking sale-terminals. They spend all their time popping up unwanted notifications which are just advertising.

And the interface of modern devices is actually horrible for learning. Some stuff may be intuitive, but the biggest issue is that every slight movement, accidental tap or gesture is linked to something so for kids it's too easy to do something that exits the current program or bring up some sidebar. It's impossible even for me to connect "what did I just do?" with the sudden change in context. It makes it really hard to connect cause and effect. And don't even get me started on how dangerous apps like YouTube are for kids. The recommendation algo seems to surface click-farm scam content in no time. Or weird dopamine traps.

So my kids will start with a device that isn't constantly trying to sell things, they will learn to understand simple systems which has deterministic behavior.

msephton 32 minutes ago||

Good luck, I mean that. Times have changed, my kids simply aren't interested in the things I was growing up, so as parents we decided not to force them but rather to positively reinforce whatever it is they want to do. That's not to say they can do whatever they want, of course, but they lead the direction.

PrimeOS32 1 hour ago||

This is a pocket Linux terminal with loads of untapped potential out of the box. Combining voice navigation with an ssh linked home AI server may make this a true privacy-first successor to the prying smartphone for the AI era. And there is the audio quality, with a battery that lasts a week. The Bluetooth tethering has a standby feature so any non-cellular wifi device you carry is effectively always connected as well. It won't drop like most smartphones. There is way more utility in this combo than the brick in your pocket we have to contend with now. I hope Commodore can see past the detox only and see what they have really created here. Meanwhile hackers can have a field day!!

itomato 40 minutes ago|

Not really, it’s a 5 year old SOC that runs Sailfish.

You want a Linux box in your pocket? Why does a flip phone factor excite you?

dpcan 2 hours ago||

I'd go this direction as long as it had a real keyboard... Maybe it's time for the blackberry to reemerge.

hoppyhoppy2 1 hour ago||

https://clicks.tech/communicator

andrewstuart 31 minutes ago||

Here you go:

https://lilygo.cc/collections/t-deck-series

tcrenshaw 3 hours ago||

I'm interested in the form factor and excited about the inclusion of a headphone jack but SailfishOS is the real selling point for me.

I'll buy this if there is a way to remove the app restrictions they have. Ideally, I should be able to flash the default SailfishOS

Jolter 1 hour ago||

That’s the whole selling point of this phone, though. If they had made it easy to sideload Twitter, they might as well not make a phone.

Retr0id 2 hours ago||

Their FAQ says there's no way to disable the restrictions, but they also say you can sideload APKs.

itomato 27 minutes ago||

Might as well get an Android flip phone?

Cheaper with a more powerful SOC and better feature set?

Disable your own features, don’t let Perifractic own you.

specproc 1 hour ago||

I'm not sure about these new dumb phones. Just not having social media in the first place has worked alright for me.

I hate my phone, and my relationship with it, but sometimes you just need to use one.

My preferred strategy is having a normal phone, minimal apps, and just keeping it switched off most of the time, particularly round the house.

Thing is, I've got a worse problem with my laptop and desk. Between HN, lichess, and a handful of favoured blogs, I can easily blow a day doing nothing, without the help of a phone.

Honestly, I think something deeper than a different form factor is required. If anyone has found it, let me know.

itomato 38 minutes ago|

It’s not even a dumb phone. It’s a WhatsApp flip phone.

diydsp 1 hour ago||

The cool thing is running two phones w same number. One big market phone and one minimal. Take the minimal out most of the time and the big one when you need to.

Tmobile used to let me do that but it was pricey.

Someone 1 hour ago|

It still is pricey, but you can already buy such a minimal one; it’s a smartwatch.

aspect0545 1 hour ago|

I would use that phone if I had the ability to customise it to my needs. I don’t want meta apps nor Spotify preinstalled, but I would take the ability to install signal.

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