Commodore, the long-lasting pc model of the Nineteen Eighties, is as soon as once more again to your consideration—slapping its identify on the most well liked development: digital detox.
After a model reboot (once more) and the devoted recreation of the unique Commodore 64 private pc (once more), the corporate’s subsequent product is a smartphone with the on a regular basis necessities, however with out the apps most adept at hogging your consideration.
The Commodore Callback 8020 will not be the primary Commodore-branded telephone (that may be the Pet from 2015), but it surely’s the primary to really feel distinctive and attention-grabbing. It’d seem like a dumb Nokia telephone from yesteryear, however this flippy gadget has entry to modern-day Android apps as a result of it runs the Linux-based Sailfish OS from the Finnish firm Jolla. The Callback’s entrance display screen exhibits the date, time, and battery standing, however no notifications. Flip it open, and also you’re greeted with a {custom} interface that may run apps like Uber, WhatsApp, and Spotify.
What it could actually’t run are distracting apps that pull you away from life, so no social media, no browsers, and no e mail, and positively no Slack.
Commodore CEO Christian “Peri Fractic” Simpson says Commodore might have gone quiet within the ’90s, but it surely’s able to enter its Y2K period by going laborious into early-2000s expertise, which simply so occurs to be en vogue proper now.
“Lots of people are attempting to return to barely less complicated tech and perhaps making an attempt to ditch their smartphone on the weekend,” Simpson tells WIRED. “We discovered that for the folks shopping for the C64, that very a lot resonated with them. So we positioned ourselves as a little bit of a digital minimalist model.” Simpson factors out that the brand new Commodore 64 Final, the corporate’s throwback desktop PC launched in 2025, has a phrase processor so folks can write distraction-free, very like on a typewriter.
Commodore has a producing companion in Shenzhen to construct the telephone. (Commodore would not share the identify of this companion.) The Callback has a MediaTek Helio G81 processor, features a 32-GB microSD card and custom-designed in-ear displays from FiiO. Sure, there is a headphone jack and an “audiophile-grade” digital-to-analog converter within the Callback. The battery is detachable and replaceable, and an LED mild on the entrance can provide you with a warning when notifications are available in. The telephone additionally has an FM radio tuner.
The digicam has a 48-megapixel Sony digicam sensor that, on paper, appears to have the ability to snap respectable pics. Commodore has additionally constructed a retro camcorder mode with procedurally generated filters, making it seem like your video footage got here straight from the ’90s. The display screen helps contact capabilities, although the corporate says that is disabled by default.
