Commodore recently announced a mobile phone with no social media, no email, no browser, and no apologies. Arriving later this year, the Commodore Callback 8020 is the flip phone between dumb and smart, built for a world that wants to flip off ‘always on’.
In 1986, Commodore Founder Jack Tramiel stated, “Most major corporations don’t respect people … I don’t believe in that.” And the Callback arrives at a time when a growing number of consumers, parents, and policymakers are questioning the cost of never ending connectivity, carrying all of the world’s information in your pocket, and chasing likes on a glowing black rectangle. Commodore is positioning the device not just as a retreat from ‘Black Mirror’ technology, but as a return to technology’s original promise: tools that serve their users, not enslave them. Where the customer is not the product. And where the product reflects the techno-optimism of ‘the future we were promised’ from the early 2000s.
“Those same major corporations are convinced their phones should fold, and we agree. We think they should fold completely,” said Peri Fractic, CEO and President, Commodore. “Becoming a new parent a few years ago made me ask myself what type of father I wanted to be, and led me to realise that like so many of us, I was addicted to my smartphone. Switching to a dumbphone three years ago changed my life. I’m more present. I enjoy looking at the world around me. I don’t reach for my phone every few minutes. And my two year-old daughter doesn’t see me staring at something she doesn’t understand for half of the day. But the minimal phones I tried were too minimal, and so at Commodore we set out to create “the not dumb dumbphone”. The Commodore Callback is the phone I wished had existed when I started my journey, and the one we now want to put in the hands of everyone who’s ready to escape the doomscrolling and distractions, with a speed bump for the mind.”
Offering a beautiful retro-aesthetic flip phone style, the Callback’s look and feel is inspired by the Y2K era in both form and functionality, updated with sophisticated modern capabilities thanks to Commodore’s new partnership with Jolla, who have adapted their Sailfish OS for use on Callback. The roots of Linux-based Sailfish OS trace directly back to Nokia’s mobile operating system legacy. The platform is maintained with Commodore by Jolla, the Finnish company founded by veteran Nokia team members instrumental in that OS’s creation.
“At Jolla, our mission is to put the control back into the hands of users, not data aggregators,” said Sami Pienimäki, CEO & Co-founder of Jolla. “Partnership with Commodore perfectly illustrates how Sailfish OS empowers individuals to reclaim their digital independence through true, user-first innovation.”
“There is something very fitting about a company like Commodore – where the lights dimmed in the nineties – returning ready to enter its Y2K era just as consumers are beginning to move back to that simpler tech,” added Fractic.
While not Commodore’s first telephone (the company sold a Commodore branded rotary dial phone in Canada in 1983), the new phone’s 8020 model number acts as both a successor to Commodore’s highest numbered communications device – the 8010 modem – and a reference to Commodore’s 80s heritage and 2000s tech aesthetic.
The Callback 8020 features:
- The best Android apps, without Android: Sailfish OS offers a completely de-Googled experience compatible with over 99% of Android apps, including popular favorites like WhatsApp messaging, Maps, and Spotify. This is achieved thanks to Sailfish OS’s Android Runtime app compatibility layer.
- Privacy First: Commodore and Callback don’t collect personal data without consent, don’t monetize data, don’t track cookies, and don’t monitor activities. Callback is built on Sailfish OS, a major mobile OS designed not to monetize your data or share it with third parties. Your personal information doesn’t belong to anybody but – and is only ever used to provide services to – you. (Notably the official Commodore website is also one of the few in the tech world that does not employ tracking cookies for this same reason.)
- Peaceful by Design: Internet browsers and social media are blocked at the system level using patent pending technology, eliminating temptation and designed with distraction-free schools in mind. Its dome LED notification system removes the need to rely on distracting popup messages designed to make you click things. The philosophy is to take people away from screens as much as possible.
- Off Hours: No Slack. No Email. When you’re not at work, you’re not at work. If you’re needed, they can “callback” tomorrow.
- Communal: Callback celebrates real communication. From texting with predictive text, to messaging platforms like Signal or WhatsApp, we want you to stay in touch. It even supports a third party app that allows Apple’s iMessage to work.
- Capable: Connected to the internet but not the web, for everything you need and nothing you don’t: maps, home security, QR codes, and worldwide band compatibility – you name it.
- Customizable: Get back to a world where you can replace your battery, swap out colorful covers, add a charm, and truly make your phone your own.
- Classically Commodore: Play your way with a curated collection of Commodore 64 games, carefully selected to avoid the addictive nature of modern mobile games, and bask in the red glow of Callback’s exterior display, inspired by classic Commodore calculators of the 1970s. It displays just date, time, battery, and signal. No popup notifications. And of course, with Nokia heritage, the Callback has to have Snake (it’s the law).
- Sonically Commodore, too: Relive the earliest days of chiptunes with a full 8-Bit SID music player and SID ringtones, honoring the Commodore 64’s breakthrough sound chips with officially licensed classic, and new, tunes.
- Hi-Def Audio + IEMs: Audiophile grade music DAC on board, with chips from companies with strong heritage ties back to the Commodore ecosystem. HD Audio includes albums from artists such as LukHash and Anders Enger Jensen. Also includes HD in-ear monitor (IEM) earphones – with a 3.5mm jack and inline remote, of course. It even has a built-in FM radio for infinite free music in your pocket.
Callback marks Commodore’s first entry into the world of purpose-driven future facing technology, which the company firmly believes is necessary to restore autonomy and privacy to a populace which has been robbed of both. The company’s two pillars of retro and futurism are both built around devices that serve and excel at a deliberate function, without distraction, and can be put down just as easily as they were picked up.
“Humanity was sold the convenience of having access to everything everywhere all at once,” added Fractic, “but that ‘convenience’ has come at a cost. The weight of the entire world – work, memes, propaganda, harassment, bullying, distraction – and as we saw in a recent California court ruling, the intentional addiction of children. It’s time for a “big tech” company to do better. There was a time when we believed technology would bring us the future we were promised. A time of optimism and potential. Getting back there starts with a single step for every one of us, made easier by removing the immense weight of that glowing black rock from our pockets. The Callback can be an evening phone, a weekend phone, a “going out to dinner with the family” phone, or replace our everyday phone completely, depending what level we want to start reconnecting with the world around us. Those of us who have already done it can vouch for its impact, and will never go back – we’ve learned to live with less scroll, and more soul.”
Dial down the digital and dial up the life: Commodore Callback 8020 will be available later this year in five distinct styles: BASIC Beige, ProtoPET White, and SX Silver for USD 499.99, the stunning translucent Starlight Edition for USD 549.99, and the PVD gold Founders Edition, with 24k gold plated “C=” button, for USD 640. Pre-orders for all models will open soon, with shipping targeting Q4 this year.
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