{"id":2182,"date":"2026-06-16T09:52:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T09:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2182"},"modified":"2026-06-16T09:52:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T09:52:27","slug":"commodore-callback-flip-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=2182","title":{"rendered":"Commodore\u2019s Callback 8020 is a retro flip phone with modern ideals"},"content":{"rendered":"


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When Christian Simpson, a retro gaming YouTuber also known as Peri Fractic, bought the remains of an early PC company called Commodore in 2025, he decided to pick up right where the original Commodore left off. Which meant starting product development in the mid-1990s. Simpson and his team first set to work reviving the company\u2019s most iconic product, and you can now buy a Commodore 64<\/a> that is the spitting image of the 1982 original (other than the Wi-Fi connectivity, the USB ports, and a few other slightly modern niceties). It\u2019s a pure nostalgia play, and by most accounts a very good one. Commodore says it has sold 30,000 of them since last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After that, things began to get hypothetical. The turn of the 21st century was the beginning of the cellphone era, when companies like Nokia ruled the technological world. Simpson found himself asking: What would Commodore have done? Made a phone, surely. \u201cI think they would have followed Apple,\u201d Simpson tells me, \u201cand ultimately released an iPhone. Or, at least, a phone. <\/em>Every other company did.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The new Commodore is now getting ready to ship the phone the original Commodore never dreamed of. It\u2019s called the Callback 8020, it\u2019s a flip phone, and it starts at $499. With features and colors straight out of the early aughts, Simpson seems to hope it can once again satiate people\u2019s gadget nostalgia, while also providing an answer to a very 2026 problem: We\u2019re all on our phones too much.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The translucent blue looks great \u2014 but you\u2019ll pay extra for it.<\/figcaption>Image: Commodore<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s not an impressive piece of computing hardware, but it\u2019s not really trying to be. It has a 3.25-inch, 480 x 640 screen on the inside, a MediaTek Helio G81 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, a headphone jack, and an FM radio antenna. The retro stylings read \u201cretro\u201d; the spec sheet reads \u201cprobably a little slow.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Philosophically, the Callback has a lot in common with devices like the Light Phone, and tries to strike the same tricky balance between giving people all the features they need and exactly nothing else. \u201cThis is really the phone between dumb and smart,\u201d Simpson says. It blocks social media and web browsers entirely; the phone isn\u2019t even allowed to access Facebook\u2019s servers. Because the device runs a version of Jolla\u2019s privacy-focused Sailfish operating system, though, it can technically run just about any Android app.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rather than try to guess exactly what users want, Commodore\u2019s plan is to build an allow-listing system, by which users can request to have an Android app added to the Callback\u2019s store, and a combination of AI and human reviewers will decide what\u2019s acceptable. (And, of course, for everything else there\u2019s sideloading.) Simpson seems game to add things like Uber and Spotify, and is fully ready to stop time-sucks like Slack and Gmail from ever ending up on a Callback.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For at least one computer company, it\u2019s the 20th century all over again.<\/figcaption>Photo: Commodore<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Commodore imagines the Callback as a nights-and-weekends phone for getting away from all your work apps and notifications. The whole phone is designed to be quieter: It has five colored LEDs that glow when you have a notification, rather than buzzing in your pocket. The phone\u2019s outer screen only ever shows the time, date, battery level, and connectivity status. You can take pictures with the 48-megapixel camera, send messages via voice or old-school T9 typing, listen to music with the \u201caudiophile-grade\u201d DAC and included headphones, make calls, and not much else.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The standard Callback model comes in beige, white, and silver. There\u2019s also a very cool translucent blue model for $549.99, and a gold \u201cFounders Edition\u201d model for $640. Commodore\u2019s plan is to start shipping the phones by the end of this year, and Simpson seems confident he can get it done even with the shrinking supply of RAM and other components. \u201cWe\u2019ve built in a buffer to the pricing,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd if we don\u2019t use that buffer, it allows us to offer a discounted launch price instead.\u201d The starting price is a bit high for a second phone, but Commodore\u2019s timing is actually quite good. More and more people are looking for a way out of their smartphone, and Y2K nostalgia is back in full swing. Maybe Commodore\u2019s time really has come again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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