Commodore Made a Digital Detox Phone That Isn't Dumb
wired.me48 points by Audiophilip 3 days ago
48 points by Audiophilip 3 days 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.
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".
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.
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
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.
For some reason the diagram under the "Not Your Granny's Flip" heading has been AI-generated
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.
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
Their FAQ says there's no way to disable the restrictions, but they also say you can sideload APKs.
It looks awesome but I’d need to be able to swap an eSIM easily to switch back and forth from an iPhone.
eSIMs can't be swapped by design to increase lock-in. That's why I never buy a phone that requires an eSIM or use a carrier that only issues an eSIM.
The phone may not be dumb (we'll see) but the idea for new Commodore to release one is. Sorry to be so blunt.
Keeping my eye on this. I really like the general form factor and aesthetic here. The candy-like wired audio and chiptune ringtones are a fun bonus.
Folks have a hard time reclaiming their attention from the never ending distractions of a smart phone. If commodore can make a device and ecosystem to make that happen, I’m sure folks will spend the money.
The reality though is, most folks don’t even think how much time they spend on phones, so I hope they can become profitable with devices sold in the thousands.
> Folks have a hard time reclaiming their attention from the never ending distractions of a smart phone.
It's actually surprisingly easy. Flash LineageOS and don't install any nonessential apps which includes no play services. At that point all you have is SMS and the browser. (If you find even just the browser too difficult to resist then configure parental controls I guess.)
Alternatively a less drastic action is to permanently set it to silent. You (and your contacts) get used to it after a few weeks.
Commodore died in the 80-90s, this is the husk of a dead horse being beaten by some YouTuber.
We had smart phones already before iOS and Android came to be, so the headline is a bit duh.
This is a similar idea to the lightphone. I would be curious to see a more detailed comparison of the twos features.
Speaking as someone who loved the hell out of the dysfunctional mess that was Commodore, and read every Compute's Gazette front to back as soon as it came out: FFS, just let them stay dead. I'm really sick of seeing my generation being strip-mined nonstop for nostalgia.
I need car play, eg maps + YouTube music. And fb and texto + messenger + whatsapp. Price is irrelevant if i can get a “fully functional” phone without a browser. Oh i guess I could live without discord. But seems fine to have..
not so sure about this one.
It’s as overpriced as the SpaceX IPO.
That'd mean they sell for more than the advertised price given how the stock went up after launch.
Overpriced relative to what? Phones that are produced at scale by the millions and so can have much lower prices due to economy of scale? That's going to be the case with anything produced in low volumes, but that doesn't mean they are overcharging for it.
Most tech products are sold at somewhere around 3-4x what it costs the company to make them.
I have no idea how much it costs to produce this phone, but if you asked me how much it should cost, I'd say about 200 USD.
That's the hardware. How much do you have to add on to cover the designer and software people's salaries and the CEO's profit, if you're only going to be able to sell 5 phones?