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.
Great initiative but at this price it’s just a scam srlsy…
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That is the price if you ship million of units. Realistically, how many units can ship this? 10k? 20k?
Once you consider the price of the plastic shell molds (custom), the custom keypad, the custom motherboard, the custom assembly line, this price is almost cheap.
I wouldn’t even consider a purchase even at a third of the price, but it was a scam if they simply put a sticker on some Alibaba clamshell with stock android, instead here they even partnered with Jolla to have sailfish is as base with the android emulator. That’s much more expensive than just slapping android aosp with a minimal launcher and calling it a day
Jolla phone and that is with much better specs
Nostalgia sells
People pay over $1k for a phone. Now that is a scam.
But those phones are mini computers, some of which people use as an actual desktop.
or you can get an actual desktop – and even laptops – for less money and a better experience.
MediaTek Helio G81 SoC, with 4GB/64GB
Uhhh. For $500? Sorry, no.
I mean its a small company. We have become too used to subsidized costs at the sake of our privacy. Know why TVs are now $200? They are literal spyware in the home. Try buying one without spyware, $999 real fast for the same TV.
Know why phone companies give you a “free” $1000 phone? Youre the product. Constantly tracked and sold. A digital slave.
Phone companies dont give you a “free” $1000 phone, you’re actually paying more for it via the monthly bill payments.
That’s on top of you being the product as well.
True
Opposed to fake fast?
Not free, and on pixels you can install de googled androids like grapheneos and LineageOS
Economies of scale. How many people actually want to buy this?
I think this is the real answer, rather than the other comment about users being monetized. There are plenty of affordable Android phones with decent specs that have no spyware besides Google’s, and Google’s not subsidizing them.
There are also still dumbphones on the market for under $100. I don’t see Android app support as that big a selling point with these specs.
Good luck to them, but I don’t think this is a viable niche.
Look, I love the idea of a Linux phone.
But $500 and it manages my temptations for me? Fuck no.
The whole point of Linux is freedom.
Enough behavior shaping.
Yeh right, i already don’t use social media on my phone, skill issue
How does it not have social media or browser if so many apps are compatible? Doesn’t that amount of compatibility mean we can still have social media and browsers?
Based on the article, they have a blocklist of certain apps. You can only install apps they allow. Not sure how extensive the list is, but surely the most popular ones are blocked and they will probably update the list.
Lmao
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
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.
Small production run + half-decent internals probably accounts for a lot of the price.
Having experimented with $100 underpowered flip phone on KaiOS, lack of apps was a real problem. What (some) people want is the slight inconvenience of a T9 keyboard and an annoyingly small screen to help them limit their screen time, but they still want full functionality of all their apps.
as someone who has been using t9 phones for the last 3-4 years, the tough part is will the software and keys even be good on this. you just don’t know till you use it. It’s true, having an underpowered phone sucks ( I’m using the Sonim X320 now which I believe has 4GB of ram, and it’s soooo nice compared to the Cat S22 Flip ). But a lot of issues on my previous phones (prev mentioned Cat, then the Qin F25) was mostly the software not working well with buttons or the screen size. The sonim I have now works well because the stock apps a designed for the hard ware. $450 or whatever is still too much, but if it covers all the bands and use usable, at least it’s an option.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
So happy with my 2nd hand Pixel 8. No BS, ecologically acceptable IMHO and yes runs most Android apps thanks to GrapheneOS.
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.
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.
499? hahahhaa
Ah yes, another company trying to squeeze ridiculous amounts of money out of people just because “it has linux”.
That’s easy too expensive for a phone with bad specs that just has blocked access to certain apps
