The subsequent Commodore-branded product has been introduced, and it’s not a gaming system.
The Commodore model has been bought quite a few occasions over time, and in 2025 it was acquired by Christian ‘Peri Fractic’ Simpson. Final 12 months it introduced an FPGA recreation of the Commodore 64 house laptop referred to as the Commodore 64 Final, and now it’s revealed its second product – a cellphone designed to dam social media.
The Commodore Callback is a flip cellphone which is designed to suit someplace between a wise cellphone and a ‘dumb’ telephones, with Simpson noting: “The smartphone remains to be too sensible. And dumb telephones are, nicely, too dumb. So we constructed a bridge between. That’s the Callback.”
Whereas most flip telephones don’t have any smartphone capabilities, the Callback does function some smartphone apps together with WhatsApp, Sign, Telegram, Google Maps and Uber, in addition to a music participant and a 48MP Sony rear digital camera.
Its built-in DAC will help HD audio and lossless information, and the cellphone will include HQ IEM earphones, in addition to a choice of ringtones primarily based on Commodore 64 SID music.
Social media apps, nevertheless, are “blocked on the system stage”, with Commodore claiming the cellphone is “designed to be not simply college pleasant, however human pleasant”.
An FAQ part asking if the block may be turned off replies: “No. Callback is constructed round these blocks. That’s the level.”
Addressing the explanation for blocking net browsers too, it says: “As a result of the browser is the again door. Most social media, feeds, video websites, information spirals, and infinite searches are nonetheless accessible by means of the net. Blocking solely the apps would go away the principle temptation intact.
“What number of occasions have you ever opened a browser to go looking up one thing fast, then been deliberately offered one thing else to click on and half an hour later, you forgot what you wished to seek for?”
In a press release, Commodore CEO Peri Frantic described the Callback as “a contemporary cellphone with not one of the apps that make you anxious – advertisements, algorithms, feeds, a browser, a bottomless inbox, or the workplace chat that follows you house. Was any of that actually for you anyway?”
He added: “Oh, and naturally it may possibly emulate a Commodore 64, with just a few fastidiously chosen Commodore video games and SID chip ringtones, as a result of how may we not?”
The Commodore Callback will use a customized model of Linux-based Sailfish OS, and was designed in collaboration with Sailfish’s engineering crew Jolla.
The OS is designed to be appropriate with 99% of Android apps in concept, although clearly as a result of a big proportion of those apps require touchscreen – one thing the Callback doesn’t have – their performance could also be restricted.
Commodore says the cellphone’s flip closure and T9-style button texting “provides aware friction to utilization”, and the shortage of touchscreen means “an finish to doomscrolling”.
Pre-orders for the Commodore Callback will begin on June 30 at 9am BST, with those that be part of the waitlist getting $50 off the overall worth.
Launch colors will embody the gold-coloured Founders Version (which has a 24 karat gold-plated Commodore key and prices £520) to the transluscent blue Starlight Version (£447) and the cheaper BASIC Beige, SX Silver and ProtoPET White (all of that are £410).
The timing of the Callback’s announcement could also be lucky for the brand new Commodore, on condition that earlier this week the UK authorities introduced that it might be implementing a ban on all social media, however that it wouldn’t embody apps like WhatsApp.
In concept, the Callback – which Commodore calls “college pleasant” – could possibly be one resolution for fogeys who nonetheless want to have the ability to contact their kids at college.
