Mastodawn

Commodore’s new flip phone runs Sailfish OS with 99% Android app support (Signal, Maps, Uber etc) but blocks browsers, social media and work emails at the OS level. Features a T9 keys, no popup notification preview outer screen (only shows the time, date, battery, and network signal), audio headphone jack, user swappable battery, and retro C64 games to reclaim your focus. What do you think?

https://commodore.net/why-a-flip-phone/

nixCraft 🐧18h ago

The phone expected to start at US $500 for the standard models. There are also higher end editions etc that cost about $640 (Founder's Edition with 24K gold-plated Commodore button and premium finish etc). The price is higher. They need a basic phone model that can allow google maps and uber and I will buy it at lower price. $500 is too much. I just need those two for travel which cheapo phone does the job.

SrGesus 18h ago

@nixCraft FIVE HUNDRED FOR A FLIP PHONE?!

squalouJenkins 18h ago

@srgesus @nixCraft some pay twice that for a not-even-flip phone 🙂

Fuchsiii~~~18h ago

@nixCraft I like the idea too, but 500 is waaaay to much :/ Hopefully this is early adopter tax and it reduces in price drastically in time.

Haelwenn /элвэн/

@nixCraft Yeah $500 is horribly expansive for a flip-phone, that said it's pretty cool to see SailfishOS in that beloved form-factor.

Moses Izumi 18h ago

@lanodan @nixCraft
I think they should've made a keyboard phone with 2-3 USB ports and dual SD card slots, instead of jumping face-first into the digital minimalism gutter (i.e the "no browser, no email" bollocks).
maybe even a full-size HDMI port.

basically any features that'd make a current smartphone (including the cheap ones) viable as a replacement for your laptop.

Haelwenn /элвэн/

@moses_izumi @nixCraft Yeah the no browser/email is horseshit, that said well… given the bad situation of the browser (*sarcasm* thanks Mozilla) on SailfishOS I guess it might be a good idea in terms of managing expectations.

That said it's kind of fun because my 2009 feature phone got email+minimal-browser, same for my current one (HDM 110 4G) that I recently bought.

Personally what I wish for is an actual return to feature phones quite like the Nokia E65, telephony as first-class, then rest of communication/multimedia/PDA/… stuff second, and third as a bonus third-party apps for things like games and some software it doesn't have builtin.
Which entirely clashes with the smartphone model, as there any sort of third-party bullshit is at the same level as critical features.

@nixCraft i also agree and i do not like whatsapp being installed because many hospitalities use that to manage staff.

Max Lee 18h ago

@nixCraft Tbh. if one only wants a cheap phone you get plenty of old flagships for under 100 bucks used. Update it with a custom rom to the latest Android and you can basically run everything you want (besides AAA games of course)

The Commodore phone does not seem to target the segment of cheap phones, they target the segment of "well-off people who want to go on a digital sabbatical but don't have the will power so they need to buy a gadget which can offer this" or alternatively "enough money to just randomly buy cool gadgets" (I used to be in the last category when I still made decent money, this definitely appeals to me especially as I already run a phone with Sailfish OS and love flip phones)

@nixCraft I am really curious about software stack and hope there will be tinkering possible.
But I still have ~7yrs to go with FP6 so it will be pass for me.
As for the price, I would not expect small company to produce phone that's more than rebrand for price that could compete with rest of the industry. We live in AI era, probably those 4GB of RAM alone cost half of the manufacturing price 🙁

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial 17h ago

@nixCraft I was expecting it to be like $150.

Commodore is cool and all but $500 is laughable.

AstroHyde 16h ago

@nixCraft I need to be able to see email 😭 otherwise it looks near perfect!

@nixCraft just saw this https://dumbermini.com/products/dumber-phone might fit the bill

Preorder Dumber Mini

Matt Hall 16h ago

I'll drop $500 on a phone that does all that _right_ now.

I dunno if I even _have_ $500.

@nixCraft In the current hardware climate, and Commodore presumably not expecting to enjoy the usual economies of scale, $500 kinda makes sense (unfortunately).

As I've pretty much trimmed down my phone to be precisely this, I will be watching this phone with interest.

codingWombat (he / him) ⌨18h ago

@nixCraft wait it is not april fools today :D

stefan (stefbun)18h ago

cc @quad

@stefan @nixCraft Yeah, flip phones and "dumbphones" are trendy again. I love it, I've missed flip phones.

Dunno if I'm too interested in the commodore though, sailfish is cool, I'm not really too interested in the whole "dumb" aspect of these trendy phones. I just want a proper Android phone that's also a flip phone (like my current style folder 2).

For example I dunno how the commodore phone would handle my banking app, which isn't just picky about the Android base it runs on, it doesn't respect D-pad navigation, it's one of the apps where I have to fall back to using the touchscreen on my current phone.

Rather than the commodore callback, I'd be more interested in a flip variant of the dumber mini: https://dumbermini.com/ (which despite its name is not a dumbphone, it runs full android with a touchscreen if needed)

Dumber Mini

A Nokia-style phone with WhatsApp and Maps!

Dumber Mini

stefan (stefbun)18h ago

@quad You are really in the game of flipphones I see

Just thought this might be interesting to you regardless

@stefan yeah thanks, i hadn't heard of it.

I've wanted a flip phone for like 10+ years because I always thought Japanese keitai were cool. Unfortunately they're a bit too rough to use as a daily driver outside of Japan. So I fell down the rabbit hole about a month ago when I learned that the Mive Style Folder 2 existed.

The main drawback of the Callback is the lack of a touchscreen, which is simply needed for a bunch of Android apps which can't handle d-pads. At such a high price I'll have to wait for a few reviews before I consider dropping cash on it.

Also glossy plastic. I despise glossy plastic. My Style folder 2 had it only on the top, so I covered it with matte stickers, but the commodore phones all look overly glossy in the photos. I don't care what the price is, if it's glossy it goes in the trash

lxskllr 18h ago

Useless for me. My phone is a portable computer, with telephony only included cause it's there. If I want something blocked, I'll just block it.

Phone looks fun, but I can't use looks. Might as well carry a rock in my pocket.

Charlie Stross 15h ago

@lxskllr @nixCraft It's aimed at grandparents (who remember the Commodore brand) and parents (who want their kids to carry a tracking device but not use social media). If you use your phone as a personal computer with cellular data, you are Not The Intended Audience.

doragasu 18h ago

@nixCraft Some interesting things, like running Sailfish. But I don't need the app blocking, just don't ship bloat and let me choose. The pricing also doesn't help.

doragasu 16h ago

@nixCraft The pitch is so filled with clearly AI generated slop that it makes my stomach turn. https://commodore.net/callback/

Flip-phone - Commodore

Commodore

@nixCraft Not for me but cool it exists, I like browsing the web in my break times. Good it uses Sailfish Android needs to die a bit. Though I really like GrapheneOS.

Chris 👾18h ago

@nixCraft As much as I liked flip phones back in 2006, this seems too much of an expensive gimmick for me. If their selling point is "no social media" etc. - well, any phone can do that for a lot less than 500 dollar, there are plenty of apps for minimalist, distraction-free setups and I prefer to control these kind of things myself. I like the audio headphone jack though.

@nixCraft how much are you being paid to promote this junk?

Mlékař Dan 🦣17h ago

@nixCraft Blocking a web browser is certainly a choice.

SunDancer 17h ago

@nixCraft Way too expensive for a gadget

Farhan Ahmed 17h ago

@nixCraft As much as I would like a flip-phone, the price point at ~500 USD for this is a hint that it will not sell well.

David P 17h ago

Is that thing the size of a fucking toaster or has her hand been replaced by that of a toddler?

@nixCraft To be honest, I don't understand this ban on certain apps. As a user, I would like to decide. It probably doesn't make sense to open a website there, so the format of the phone would solve that. It's not like a browser user buys this phone by accident or something, and feels cheated. But the direction is interesting.

🐈‍⬛David Sommerseth 17h ago

@nixCraft I find this refreshing. And it reflects the mood of a lot of smartphone users today.

$500 is probably a tad too much to gain widespread popularity. But it could have been way worse. And considering what it seems people are willing to pay for smartphones today, it sure is a bargain.

Running SailfisOS certainly is a good move - and ensure that there's a community behind the OS. And SailfishOS is pretty nice. And I trust Jolla way more than an AOSP build.where Google has influenced it heavily for their benefits (there are 2-3 exceptions of AOSP based alternatives which has gone the extra mile of kicking out Goolge, though).

My main reason for not jumping onboard on this one is that I miss a more production-ethical aspect. One which I believe Fairphone does much better. Ensuring they deliver a more sustainable phone, where the supply chains are far more scrutinised than most other vendors do.

That's where I stand at least.

((Jann Gobble)) 🏳️‍🌈17h ago

@nixCraft Since Jack Tramiel died 14 years ago, I'm game to try it even though it's Android!

Look, I typed that without throwing up! OMG! I can't believe I typed that and didn't get sick!

Malva 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🇵🇸14h ago

@jgobble @nixCraft Sailfish, not Android

((Jann Gobble)) 🏳️‍🌈14h ago

@malva @nixCraft I know, I get it... but it runs android apps (99%). If it looks like a duck... 😉

Freevolt 17h ago

@nixCraft Well, I think the idea of focusing on fundamentals is great, especially when phone venders are trying to push all sort of nonsense that customers won't ever need or want, but I think promoting the Android compatibility with no internet browsing is largely contradicting; that's a good chuck of the reasons for using smartphones. And the price... I'd rather stick to Android phones with physical keyboards (which is also a market of its own, though microscopic compared to the "mainstream").

Javensbukan 17h ago

@nixCraft This is super cool, but I'm dying over the price.

$700 CAD?!

Do you know how many Alcatel or TCL flip phones that would buy?

Profile13115 17h ago

@nixCraft For the price of at least two #mechacomet's

Jan Niklas Fingerle 17h ago

@nixCraft
I stopped at "blocks browsers". But happy for them if they find a market for this.

@nixCraft Was excited to click on the link, but kind of disappointed with the execution. I want a minimalist phone, but I don't want it to be lacking basic modern niceties like a full keyboard. Also don't like a system that chooses how I use it. I would prefer to just be able to disable and delete services I don't want like when browsers or social media.

I do like the stuff like a headphone jack and FM tuner though. I miss that from my earliest Android phones. If it wasn't $500 I would try it.

@nixCraft How desensitized have we become to even discuss a flip phone sold half a grand?

𝙲:\𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚣𝚎𝚗> █16h ago

@nixCraft 500 $ for a flip phone when the next Sailfish flagship is set to cost 649 € is a bit steep.
But cool to see the OS gaining a bit of traction

Jason Parker (he/they)16h ago

@nixCraft Commodore? Flip phone? Why? How? ...when are we?

Western Infidels 16h ago

@nixCraft Maybe I'm an outlier here, but I don't understand how the presence of games is going to "reclaim my focus." Seems like that would do the opposite.

@nixCraft If it only has the basic apps on a small screen but also supports Android Auto it might be a fantastic device, but Signal is an absolute requirement! :D

@nixCraft
Like the idea but the no email is such a weird choice. I often receive barcodes that I need to scan in stores via email. I feel like they wrongly assume that people only use email for work.

Clara 🏳️‍⚧️16h ago

@nixCraft I think but for the restriction on browsers, social media, and work emails, it'd be an attractive option to me.

Thomas Lobig 16h ago

@nixCraft whoever owns the Commodore brand now, they are befitting its legacy. As in their newest product is dead on arrival. Ridiculous pricing and quite randomly lacking features that individually might be vital for potential customers.

★Pope Miller the Defondor 16h ago

@nixCraft I think "nope".

@nixCraft lol
No further comments 🤣

Delta Sierra 15h ago

@nixCraft the "no browser" bit is a weird choice, I see what they're shooting for but there are a million uses for a browser and frankly if I'm paying for mobile data I want the ability to look stuff up on the internet.

If there's an option to remove that limitation I'd be interested, although the price point feels a bit high. There's something to be said for the flip phone form factor (I like the additional screen protection).

Delta Sierra 14h ago

@nixCraft Nevermind, I'm no longer interested.

"If the Commodore Store is missing an app a user wants, like a home security app or an authenticator, there's a whitelist process to get it. Simpson says people can submit requests to sideload an app, and these are vetted and approved through an AI system. If the AI has trouble deciding whether to allow it, a human steps in. Not every app will be granted access, as the company wants to maintain the Callback’s raison d'être."

(from Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/commodore-callback-8020-is-a-digital-detox-phone-that-isnt-dumb/)

The Commodore Callback 8020 Is a Digital Detox Phone That Isn’t Dumb

With a retro look and T9 texting, the Commodore Callback 8020 smart flip phone taps into the nostalgic yearning for simpler days. It can run Spotify and Uber, but Instagram is blocked.

WIRED

@notthatdelta
Christ 😬

Diligence Jones 15h ago

Ooh.
Me likey.