cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/hardware/p/2144337/commodore-announces-linux-based-flip-phone-with-no-social-media-no-browser-the-callback
Linux-based phone still ‘runs 99% of Android apps’ so you can do more with it, if you wish.
They lost me at $499. A phone that is just a phone should be about a hundred bucks max. I didn’t read the article though. Maybe it’s still very computery.
That’s a stupid price, one of the main things of brick/flip phones is their low price, HMD feature phones range from about £20 to £70, some new google pixels can go for about this price, so getting something with the price of a smartphone with a fraction of the features sounds scummy.
WhatsApp isn’t a social media app?
I wouldn’t really class it as such, its just fancy texting for the majority of users
As a non user, fair enough.
It’s a messaging/chat app, closer to social networking than social media.
Maybe because it’s owned by Meta?
MediaTek Helio G81 SoC, with 4GB/64GB
Uhhh. For $500? Sorry, no.
It’s like that era of putting pink ribbons on everything for breast cancer that also signaled you were a supporter of women. Commercialized activism. Be real. This will sell very little. We’ll get some news articles about how it’s trending with Gen z that are rejecting technology and always online culture. It’ll actually only be a small amount of Gen z but you know blogspam going to blogspam.
It’s a crappy product. We need a Linux phone that would actually be a halo product for people to not feel like they’re ripping themselves off to get away from Google and Apple
Browser and email is the bare minimum, though.
Even the cheapest clamshells in the 2000s had those two.
Don’t preinstall it by default if you want to look minimal but being forced to sideload (their app store blocks this essential category???) an Android APK in the emulator instead of using native Linux apps for that, is ridiculous
I understand that for a small company like them (it’s being owned by a YouTuber now) creating hardware is extremely expensive and 499 can even considered cheap with all the custom stuff in this device, plastic molds, dedicated assembly lines and so on, but my mind can’t accept paying more than 149 for something like this
The main reason I have a smartphone is to have a browser and email. If those are not available I might as well use a dumb phone.
It’s a dumb phone with Spotify… I used to do just fine with music loaded on the phone memory.
I didn’t even know that the brand Commodore still existed.
Every few years the brand name appears to be sold to some new company
My first thought was, this might be about just what’s installed by default. Reading a bit further the article says:
Apparently, the OS has hard blocks to stop the installation of browsers and social media apps.
“Users are still able to sideload apps outside those that are blocked, using APK installer files…”
So I’m not sure why I would want pay 500 Dollars / Euros, just so they have control over what I can install and not. To me this would be a deal breaker. Also this seems to be “basically a custom version of the Jolla Sailfish OS”, so there are probably “better” options using the same OS. And it only has 4GB of RAM? I am not impressed for the price and for the control.
Whatsapp preinstalled… hard pass from me. All the other considerations like price, browser block, app emulation implementation; those are all things I could probably get past but preinstalled spyware is unacceptable from the get go.
Edit to add. The app blocking is interesting to me. Instead of thinking about the user being blocked from unstalling and using the app, I’m curious about the technology they will use to block the app (and app maker) from running activity on the device.
Hopefully the solution includes something like DNS blocking rather than a blacklist on the play integrity api and a reliance on Google killing the unstall of apk from other sources.
Not sure if DNS blocking explains the browser exclusion which is otherwise a bit odd.
So happy with my 2nd hand Pixel 8. No BS, ecologically acceptable IMHO and yes runs most Android apps thanks to GrapheneOS.
499? hahahhaa
At $200… Maybe.
AI slop video, no faith in what will (or likely won’t) be delivered.
I can get a new modern smartphone which works without major problems at $80. I see no reason to spend double that on a flip phone.
Is that phone truly Linux based, have expandable memory, a temeable battery, etc… and does it have a team actively supporting it to maintain and expand those features? I’m saying I’d pay $200 for what they were describing IF real people were building a movement away from the same black apple/samsung rectangles, locked into deep Google surveillance fed back to palantir.
Who is going to pay $500 for a retro flip phone, when you can get a second-hand iPhone for half that? Or you know, an actual flip phone for $25.
Maybe the same guys who believed in the Purism scam.
That’s easy too expensive for a phone with bad specs that just has blocked access to certain apps
They didn’t mention battery life once, and it doesn’t even have a torch?
A torch would be dangerous. A flashlight would be much safer.
the “official reveal trailer” is done with ai, it looks like a scam
Looking at the channel, dude bought the Commodore IP and are releasing retro things with this IP for absurd amount of money. The C64 ultimate for the price on their site and the shit ass hardware is a fucking joke.
