The Commodore Callback 8020 flip phone looks like it’s from decades ago but its price was definitely a sign of today’s times. That’s changed, with Commodore’s announcement today that it will drop the price $100 for most models before pre-orders start next week.
The phone caused a stir when it was announced a week ago. First, there was the thrill of 80s computing legend Commodore making a phone. Then the phone being retro in both look and function caught attention, with a flip-phone form factor combined with a focus on privacy. But one of the most unique features of the Callback 8020 is that it runs Android apps on Linux-based Sailfish OS instead of Android. Among all of the praise though, was criticism that a $500 starting price for the basic models was too high.
…
This is comical.
Commodore said that three factors were the primary cause of what consumers felt was a high price for the phone. At the top of the list is the one plaguing the entire industry: RAM pricing.
How much RAM could a phone like this use, anyway?
Also, saying that they “listened” is bullshit. They just got worried they were priced too high so it wouldn’t sell. So they lowered it. If they listened they wouldn’t have it locked in with WhatsApp, a Meta/Facebook product as the only IM option other than SMS.
Their info page says 4GB+64GB…so I assume that might be 4GB RAM and 64 internal storagr
The cynic in me is thinking this was an intentional marketing ploy.
- Price too high
- Outlets, outraged by the price talk about the features of the phone in detail, questioning how can this hardware cost cost so much
- Lower the price to your original (but secret) intent.
- Outlets now talk about how much more reasonable that is, how nice of the company to listen!
You get 2 rounds of media attention for the price of one.
For a phone that is toted as being privacy respecting, its fucked they are preinstalling software from one of the worst privacy invading companies on the planet.
Disappointing
Yet extremely understandable. On the global market, a phone without WhatsApp is basically a phone that cannot text people. For example, in Germany or Spain, 90% of internet users also use WhatsApp.
It would be like trying to sell a streaming box/tv and deciding that because Google is evil it doesn’t support YouTube.
Commodore is dead. Was dead for some 50+ years. If you want to revitalize said brand, you don’t ride it like a horse (that is dead) but make something of value. Android flipphone with preinstalled meta software that blocks you from installing and using other apps is just crude.
Commodore has been dead multiple times and been bought and “came back”. Though I must say, the first death wasn’t 50+ years ago, they were essentially in their peak around 40 years ago, which was around 4-5 years before they completely crashed and burned.
tbf it’s a linux flipphone, but yeah it seems like a kinda weird second product after their commodore remake.
I think the problem is that they grossly over estimated how many people actually wanted to buy a “legit” Commodore branded Commodore Ultimate when they came up with the idea to buy the Commodore brand.
Now they are trying to come up with ways to make it profitable but they don’t really seem to understand Product Market Fit.
I think it would be a better idea to do some high quality branded merch.
AFAIK they’ve already fully paid off the commodore IP acquisition from C64 ultimate sales, but as you say, that cannot sustain them forever.
The phone is pretty much entirely just the CEO’s personal opinion of what a phone should be, which he’s been making videos about from before the acquisition, and they appear to have done almost zero market research what the customers would want and be willing to pay…
Yes, I think part of the trick is that the CEO is a great video producer and has a large fanbase for his yt channel who are very enthusiastic about his ideas even if they won’t actually buy such a phone.
$500-$100=$400.00… that’s still $300 too much.
Ya I’d maybe pay $200. As someone else mentioned, you could use it to augment your current setup by having a phone to take out with you so people can still reach you on this thing to reduce the burden of all the regular smartphone stuff
Blocking browsers is exactly the opposite of what I want. I want a phone that’s only a browser. For me, using a browser on a mobile device is enough friction that it discourages me from using it for the stuff I intentionally uninstalled, like social media.
Give me a phone with a phone app, SMS/RCS app, RSS app, and camera app and nothing else, and I’d be perfectly content.
Remember when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone and that’s exactly what it was: beyond a handful of essential built-in tools, the only way to develop for it was web apps using the desktop-class browser engine?
Then they were like, haha, fuck you, you can only develop our apps for our phone using our PCs and you’ll pay for the privilege at every step? Yeah, fuck Steve Jobs. Fuck Apple.
Android also started out looking like the ideal “PC in your pocket” phone. It was open source, used the Linux kernel, had full slide out keyboards, etc. Both of them started out at nicer extremes and then slide into enshittification.
We’re pretty sure you can just get a normal dumb phone for that maybe, if not then this phone and reinstal the sail fish and only install a browser
It really upsets me that block web browser apps… WTF.
So now we have to get apps that get all types of information from the device instead. Huge NO for me.
The CEO of Commodore appears to be completely out of touch on people’s perception of AI use, as they’ve been using it a fair amount in videos and the advertising for this phone (AI music and AI video generation) since buying Commodore, and poorly justifying it in the comments of their videos with links to their FAQ.
Yeah keep going shitdicks. I’m not paying $400 for a deliberately featureless clam phone
I agree, it makes any difference that it’s 100 low for an almost dump phone.
The phone caused a stir when it was announced a week ago. First, there was the thrill of 80s computing legend Commodore making a phone.
garbage “journalism”. the writer should have really known the company has nothing to do with the original Commodore, other than buying rights to use the name.
I want a full-size keyboard that slides out. No more T9 bullshit.
Their aggressiveness in enticing for preorders is giving me the ick at this point.
Really interesting, the blocking apps is mindful but I’d prefer if I could bypass it explicitly. For instance I extensively use discord for messaging, and I’d need to have it. No rcs is also annoying but I’d make do with signal.
Meh. Nokia does some of this. Why cant i flash a secure kaios onto one of those?
…because Kaios is essentially dead?
I don’t know much about KaiOS so… what do you mean by “secure KaiOS”?
Terminology lapse. But their selling point is that they block some services at the os level, so why cant i get a hosts file on an existing dumbphone instead of shelling out $400 on the commodore?
Ah, thought you were talking about some fork of KaiOS (I think that unlike Firefox OS it is proprietary software? I mean, except for the parts that can’t be because of their license… yes, I know very little so forgive me if any of this sounds dumb). Anyway, I get your point now, so thank you!
deleted by creator
