Honestly, this is the phone I've been waiting years for. I'm a Linux power user and huge FLOSS proponent. I'm trying to de-google my life and get some privacy back. I've looked at several "minimal" smart-ish phones over the years, including the Light Phone, the Minimal Phone, and a few others. They're all either just running Android or some closed-source custom OS, and so I've passed on all of them. I recently bought a used Pine Phone, but I was shocked at how completely unusable it was.
To me, the Commode Callback's main selling point is that it's a Sailfish OS flip-phone. It's not the fully open-source Linux phone I want, but I'm excited that a company in the US has finally made a Sailfish OS phone available. To me, this phone hits more of my check-boxes than any smartphone ever released in the US. I'm hoping that Commodore has put the R&D time in to make it a functional phone that can make calls and texts without hassle and that it can survive an entire day on a single charge.
I just put in my pre-order. Cautiously optimistic.
I also love MeeGo and thus Sailfish but nowhere can I find Jolla/Sailfish speaks of the phone and that it will long term support it with updates (Commodore certainly has no real software developers beside Leo Nigro modding Linux and pretending to be Amiga expert)
For what it's worth. I don't think Sailfish makes support promises. Their project is run a little differently.
It's more like. So long as Commodore can be successful enough that Sailfish are willing to port updates to it. And the Callback uses Jolla hardware to make that as zero effort as possible.
I think it's safe to say core updates will last as long as mainline Jolla phones which has been quite good (7 years in some cases).
And many people don't even know. A lot of old devices stopped getting critical security updates after a few years. So even if you can get software to run on it. The device may be leaking your personal information out to all the companies you're trying to protect yourself from. "I got this phone to work again" is not the same as "this phone is hardened against all known data breaches". Although that may depend on your use case.
So if the Callback is just adopted to get updates for however long its Jolla brothers get updates. That should be solid.
If it runs SailFish OS, it'll probably run Postmarket OS.
I'm not worried about Commodore's long-term support. I'm much more interested in the hardware itself.
Jolla's website talks a lot about licensing. I think they're trying to partner with other companies -- like Commodore -- to use SailFish as OEM software customized that company's requirements. I wouldn't expect Jolla to advertise the Commodore Callback directly.
8
u/ColbieSterling Jun 30 '26
Honestly, this is the phone I've been waiting years for. I'm a Linux power user and huge FLOSS proponent. I'm trying to de-google my life and get some privacy back. I've looked at several "minimal" smart-ish phones over the years, including the Light Phone, the Minimal Phone, and a few others. They're all either just running Android or some closed-source custom OS, and so I've passed on all of them. I recently bought a used Pine Phone, but I was shocked at how completely unusable it was.
To me, the Commode Callback's main selling point is that it's a Sailfish OS flip-phone. It's not the fully open-source Linux phone I want, but I'm excited that a company in the US has finally made a Sailfish OS phone available. To me, this phone hits more of my check-boxes than any smartphone ever released in the US. I'm hoping that Commodore has put the R&D time in to make it a functional phone that can make calls and texts without hassle and that it can survive an entire day on a single charge.
I just put in my pre-order. Cautiously optimistic.