Commodore is on an unnecessary charm offensive when it comes to its new Callback flip phone after criticism from fans

I’ve had a couple of emails from the new Commodore the last couple of days. At face value they are marketing emails, full of glamorous, hero photography of the new Callback phone that is currently on pre-order… hang on, insert the sound of brakes screeching here.. yes I said phone.

But didn’t the new Commodore bounce back with the promise of new Commodore hardware (opens in a new tab) when YouTuber Peri Fractic (Christian Simpson) and his team of former Commodore employees took the reins last year? Yes it did, and this is new hardware, bear with me.

We have already had the successful launch of the Commodore 64 Ultra, which, if you were being churlish used mainly existing hardware and made it very pretty and desirable. That’s not a slur, it was a fantastic effort, and to get C64’s under Christmas trees (opens in a new tab) as presents for retro-loving parents was a stroke of genius.

So, the next obvious machine, although for licensing reasons is actually impossible at this stage, people want is a new Amiga. It’s not happening any time soon people.

But when the announcement is a dumb (ish) phone – something Simpson seems to be mad keen on, getting people to disconnect from the doom-scroll life, and more power to him for pushing that narrative, the natives on Reddit are always going to be restless, but the loudest don’t always need to be the most listened to.

And so the latest email starts with one of the most popular complaints over the Callback: “They just slapped the Commodore logo on it and called it a day.”

And goes into an explanation of why that is wrong. Custom PCBs, case tooling featuring logos and the like. We have also had an email and a blog post justifying the $400 price tag (opens in a new tab) – another big complaint of many – it was an extra $100 at one point but Commodore lowered the price, again leading to people saying it was trying to profit off the logo and why not sell it $100 cheaper in the first place? All of this I think would be more likely to put me off buying than sway me.

Around all of this, nearly 10,000 people have pre-ordered the device. I would do the same but I know I would never use it, I am too attached to my iPhone for work and family, although the beige C64 colorway is right up my alley.

This iteration of Commodore is, to all intents and purposes a new company, with people at the helm who are maybe new to this side of business and it’s decisions. It needs to be bolder and maybe stop answering all the complaints with justifications. It’s not on the same level but I don’t remember Apple blogging about why Liquid Glass was alright really when people said it looked a bit shit. or when a football team launches next season’s shirt and half the people hate it, and half the people love it.

Pull your pants up and stand firm would be my advice.

Nobody was expecting a phone, but Commodore did once promise a phone (in Canada) back in the day, so the territory is not totally uncharted. I have a retro Commodore calculator on my display shelf. I’d love a new model of that.

We have reached out to Commodore several times and simply cannot get a response. We’d love to talk to them and get proper down and dirty into what the plans going forward are. They are probably very busy people, but we’d love it if they could be a bit less defensive. I was the editor of a popular Amiga magazine back in the day when the company imploded in the ’90s so the brand is very dear to me. The fact we have it back at all is huge and should be celebrated, but the world is different now and people will hate you on social media for fake internet points, even if they don’t actually really care.

The Commodore Callback 8020 is still available for pre-order here. (opens in a new tab)