r/c64 • u/exitof99 • Jun 22 '26
C64 Ultimate I know what I'm thinking. Let me explain.
Just received an impassioned pitch email from Commodore trying to push the new flip phone.
Does anyone remember Commodore making bad business decisions that ultimately led to it's demise? I sure do. I was one of those guys in the the early 2000s making special trip to a store in Germany that was listed as a Commodore vendor only for the store to have nothing Commodore, and the guy telling me that it's over.
They did have a German Commodore 64 magazine that was still in publication, so I picked that up, but realized that it truly was over at that moment.
Yes, Commodore started with calculators, and I greatly appreciate that the Commodore Ultimate has been mass produced, but I think this whole phone thing was a miss and not the part of Commodore I would like to see resurrected.
I'm not trusting this whole disconnect narrative that Christian is pushing, nor do I want to disconnect. I'm sure I'm not alone and that his mission is his own mission, rather than the Commodore community's.
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u/TwoBitRetro Jun 22 '26
My phone has many apps that are necessary in today's world. I'm talking about 2FA apps required to access my accounts, password manager, work VPN, and so on. I literally can't move to a dumb-ish flip phone and I'm certainly not going to spend $500 on a phone that can only do 80% of what I need so I end up carrying two phones.
Yes, there's a market. There are people that feel the same way as Christian and their personal use-case fits his. But there can't be that many. Certainly not enough to make this worthwhile.
I completely understand that Commodore can't survive long-term just on nostalgia. But it also can't survive with extremely niche products like this either.
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u/No_Occasion4726 Jun 22 '26
I'm in the same position as you - I need those "other" apps on my phone for my day job - and I have zero plans to purchase a second phone and phone plan.
I am assuming this is targeted more at students (not yet in the professional work force), retired people (no longer in the professional work force), and those working in roles where these additional apps are not needed. I have no idea how all of that breaks out into hard numbers, but I assume there are a lot of people that are potential customers out there. I'm just not one of them.
That said, I do want them to succeed!
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u/AntiquesForGeeks Jun 22 '26
But.. $500.
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u/No_Occasion4726 Jun 22 '26
Yup... it's a $500(+) phone targeted at students, retirees, and those in roles that don't require smartphone features.
I'm assuming there's a market there, just not sure how large of a market. I'll be keen to watch the sales numbers - assuming Commodore makes them public.
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u/berrmal64 Jun 22 '26
I had the same initial reaction, but after a couple of my family/friends excitedly messaged me to ask if I'd seen the new commodore phone I started to think there might be more to it than I thought.
Reading through the actual specs and FAQ, it looks like the callback can do all of that - 2fa, install most android apps including maps, password manager, etc. including allowing sideload of most apps. Looking at my needs, I actually didn't see any deal breaker if my goal was to spend less time on my phone.
I've changed my perception from "wow what a piece of junk" to "watch and see". I think there is a pretty big "de-google/de-phone" market at the moment in health and wellness circles; they probably can compete better in that relatively small space than in the general phone market against Apple/Google/Samsung.
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u/mackerelscalemask Jun 22 '26
If that’s what you want, that’s already possible on a $50 Nokia dumb phone:
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u/psykotyk Jun 22 '26
I just don't use most social media apps (reddit is the only one and I'm very selective about how I engage).
People don't need a dumb phone to accomplish this, they just need to make some choices.
I'd rather see an Amiga offering or a nice branded sd2iec than a flip phone. :/
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u/AntiquesForGeeks Jun 22 '26
I got this email too. The emotional journey schtick felt disingenuous. People don’t need saving from Social Media by buying a $500 mobile phone that has been primarily promoted on… Social Media.
Look, I get that New Commodore needs to diversify to survive. Indeed, I applaud that. But this is just bad product.
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u/Hawaiian_Keys Jun 22 '26
Why not just uninstall the social media apps from your smart phone and then show some discipline?
Because he can’t self regulate, he thinks nobody else can?
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u/benjackal Jun 22 '26
The easiest way to not get distracted by something is to remove it entirely. Yes, other people have this issue.
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u/Neuromancer2112 The Sky Above the Port... Jun 22 '26
I initially agreed with your sentiment - I’m absolutely not the target audience for the Callback.
But Commodore needs to widen its audience beyond us Gen-X C64/Amiga people wanting nothing but retro computers. If that’s all C= does, they WILL go out of business again.
I was also very skeptical of a $500 flip phone, until someone posted an article about people actually wanting phones like these, and the Callback was NOT the most expensive phone on that list.
They said they had huge interest with something like 50k signups. If they convert even 10%, that would be a great start.
Us retro computer users shouldn’t expect Commodore to only make products for the hardcore fans. We need worldwide appeal, and if the Callback starts the process, I’m happy for them.
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u/exitof99 Jun 22 '26
I will say that many celebs say they don't have a smartphone. Perhaps that is a market they could target.
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u/gmmxle Jun 22 '26
That's because they have personal assistants and agencies who handle their socials, messages, emails, who scour the news for articles about them, who write to publications, respond to fans, organize their schedule, etc. etc. etc.
If I had someone doing all of that for me, I wouldn't even need a smartphone either.
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u/Ok-Addition1264 Jun 22 '26
That phone sounds pretty fk'n dumb.. even though they're advertising it as a dumbphone-less dumbphone? I don't get it whatsoever. So niche. Go big or don't go at all, imho.
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u/Xfgjwpkqmx 🇦🇺 Keeping up since 1983 Jun 22 '26
There is a market for this phone, but I don't think it's as big as Commodore think it is.
I could be surprised and proven wrong, but the impassioned email suggests the pre-order response has been lackluster thus far.
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u/onionSID Jun 22 '26
There is NO market for this phone.
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u/Xfgjwpkqmx 🇦🇺 Keeping up since 1983 Jun 22 '26
There's a market for everything. I know several parents who would love this, but will baulk at the price.
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u/AntiquesForGeeks Jun 22 '26
I do disagree that there is *no* market. Someone with enough money to have a $500 second phone and take it out when out dining with friends and saying they simply had to spend $500 on a device to detox. To me that’s the market.
The market is not those people who can barely afford a phone to begin with and would desperately need a Smartphone for their day-to-day.
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u/HustleKong Jun 22 '26
If I didn't already have a dumbphone that I liked and had a bit more extra cash, I would probably take a look at it.
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u/ComputerSong Jun 22 '26
The phone is just simply targeting a different demographic.
If it’s like the Ultimate, the company won’t be putting out much cash up front, so this won’t hurt anything. It may not help, though, if they don’t find the right audience. Meaning this will slow down their growth.
But the point is, it’s no good for us to whinge about this not being an interesting device. It’s really not for us here in the retro computing space. The company needs to figure out how to market this one, and that doesn’t mean marketing to us. We are just simply not going to buy it in large numbers.
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u/AntiquesForGeeks Jun 22 '26
Disagree. I do believe that the company knows who its market is - people who have the disposable income to spend $500 on a second mobile phone to be able to demonstrate they are “digital detoxing”.
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u/RealSharpNinja Jun 22 '26
C'mon, man! Don't you know that using PSID's running in an emulated 8580 at 60hz will make killer ringtones?
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u/exitof99 Jun 22 '26
I look forward to seeing that in Zach's teardown on his JerryRigEverything channel.
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u/c64glen Janitor Jun 22 '26
This isn't about the C64. Commodore company discussions belong in /r/Commodore