"Many of you told us you wanted a more accessible entry point"

Announced a short time ago, the Callback 8020 is seen as a means of combating the addictive lure of the modern-day smartphone. While it supports Android apps via its SailfishOS, it disables features like web browsing and social media by default.

However, despite the noble quest for a ‘digital detox’, the phone met with a somewhat frosty reception online (no pun intended), with many comparing it to an elderly relative’s flip phone. In our poll, 70 percent of you said you wouldn’t be buying one.

    • adarza@piefed.caEnglish
      23·
      1 day ago

      “Consumers can now choose whether to add Commodore’s custom-designed Hi-Def IEM earphones during checkout, rather than needing to pay for them when they may already own a pair they love. Premium memory will be available as an option, with Callback defaulting to rigorously stress-tested “post-consumer” high-speed memory chips, backed by Commodore’s identical, comprehensive 1-Year warranty.”

      so… to lower the retail by $100… earbuds not included, and reclaimed ewaste memory chips (hopefully that does not also include the main storage) now the default configuration.

      • lyralycan@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        8·
        13 hours ago

        Phones cheaper than USD$400 tend to have 4 year old chipsets*, so imo if they’ve beaten that, they’ve probably done well against the current market. By my standards a posture dumbphone should be cheaper, but it’s obviously marketing to a different demographic than e.g. Oneplus Nord and the now-dead iPhone SE. At the very least it might be a cool museum piece

        *modified for accuracy

        • Rekall Incorporated@piefed.socialEnglish
          41·
          19 hours ago

          Phones cheaper than USD$400 tend to have 6-8year old chipsets

          What area of the world are you from? Just curious where there is such a state of affairs.

          This is definitely not true for Asia and Europe. It been a while since I was living in North America, but this didn’t seem true back then. Although I lived in a city and didn’t buy through carriers and never dealt with carrier blocking independently bought phones.

          Perhaps North American carrier requirements have changed since then.

          • lyralycan@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            11·
            13 hours ago

            Ah yeah, I’m west Europe. I used the Samsung A series as a baseline for this claim, as their A04 and cheaper have 4+ year old chips, but overall it seems I was exaggerating. You know what, maybe I was getting confused with iPhones always being released with 8 year old specs

            • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              8 hours ago

              You’re either paying a massive markup for that Samsung brand mark or your idea of a phone starts at the upper-middle range.

              If you look for it there are plenty of recent phones with recent chipsets at around 250 EUR, they’re just not processing powerhouses with 8’’ HD screens and 256GB Flash but rather run some recent low-end chipset with less storage, less memory and smaller/fewer cameras.

              Here’s an example from a big store chain in Portugal which is around $187 including 23% VAT, chipset is Qualcomm Snapdragon 6s 4G Gen 1, which according to this was launched in September 2022, so less than 4 years old.

              You can get this one for $157 via AliExpress (shipped from France, 23% VAT included).

          • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
            20·
            1 day ago

            Amusingly, Commodore’s statement says the [high prices were] triggered by an “explosion of new technologies” but stops short of specifying exactly what those technologies were. That perhaps shouldn’t be surprising given Simpson’s love of GenAI and its use in Commodore’s promotional material thus far, but it’s somewhat ironic that one of the reasons for the high price is, in Commodore’s case, self-inflicted to a degree.)

            I’m starting to dislike this CEO

            • GalacticRobot@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              8 hours ago

              Turns out that maybe a YouTuber gathering a bunch of old failed Commodore executives who don’t give two shits probably isn’t the best way to bring a failed company back online who’s sole purpose is to cash in on nostalgia from GenX’ers who is general give zero fucks about it.

            • urushitan 漆たん@kakera.kintsugi.moeEnglish
              101·
              1 day ago

              The other big question, even though Simpson goes into some detail on this, is how the deal is going to be financed. A share purchase agreement is in place for those “low seven figures,” Simpson says he’s re-mortgaged to get this far, and adds that “household names who don’t want to be named” are interested before name-dropping Elon Musk (whose computing career began on a Commodore). They’re looking for angel investors, but there’s no indication of the timeframe on any deal.

              So it’s basically owned by musk, got it

              • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
                5·
                1 day ago

                He wouldn’t be the first person begging Elon Musk for attention, though. Anybody remember Elon Goat Token?

                Even if he doesn’t secure Elon as an investor, the simping does not look good.