Commodore made a new flip phone with no social media and no browser
The Callback 8020 runs almost any Android app but blocks social media, browsers, and email at the system level, and it comes from a Commodore that a retro YouTuber bought and brought back last year.
The company that sold the best-selling computer of the 1980s just made a flip phone whose entire pitch is using a computer less.
The Commodore Callback 8020, announced June 16, is a real phone you can buy. First one to wear the Commodore name in over a decade.
What the Callback 8020 actually is
Here’s the part worth slowing down on, because it’s the whole point of the thing.
The Callback runs Sailfish OS, a Linux-based, de-Googled system, and Commodore says it’ll handle more than 99 percent of Android apps through a compatibility layer. Then it bolts the door on the apps everybody actually overuses. Social media, web browsers, and email are blocked at the system level, patent-pending, marketed flatly as “no social media, no browser.” A kid can’t sideload their way around it and neither can you at 1 a.m.
Texting is T9, the old multi-tap number pad, which Commodore pitches as a deliberate speed bump for your thumbs.
The rest is what you’d expect from a flip phone. Tiny outer screen showing the time and nothing else, small inner display, microSD card in the box.
Pricing is where the eyebrow goes up. It starts at $499 when pre-orders open June 30, runs to $549 for a translucent Starlight version, and tops out at $639 for a Founders Edition with a 24-karat-gold-plated button. Units ship in late 2026.
Who owns Commodore now
Worth knowing, because this isn’t the Commodore that went under in the ‘90s.
The brand was bought in 2025 by Christian Simpson, a retro-computing YouTuber known as Perifractic, who filmed the whole acquisition for his channel and now runs the place as CEO. His first product was the Commodore 64 Ultimate, a modern C64 remake that moved around 30,000 units. The Callback is product number two, and Simpson calls it the phone he “wished had existed” back when he was trying to cut his own screen time.
Who the Callback is really for
So who pays $500 for a phone that does less than the one already in their pocket?
A bigger crowd than you’d think, honestly. Dumbphone sales have been climbing for a few years now, with a real chunk of that coming from Gen Z trying to claw their attention back from the scroll. The cheap ones already exist. What they don’t have is a name anybody feels anything about, and feelings are most of what Commodore is selling here.
Then there’s the timing, which is the genuinely smart part. Australia has barred under-16s from social media, the UK and others are circling similar rules, and parents are stuck hunting for a phone that lets a kid call home without handing them an algorithm. A phone that physically can’t run Instagram solves that without a single parental-control app to configure or a teenager clever enough to disable one.
The wall it runs into is the sticker. A no-frills Nokia flip is about sixty bucks, so $499 buys a whole lot of nostalgia and willpower-by-hardware. This is a thing you buy because of what it says about you, not because of what it does, and that’s a narrower shelf than the press release wants it to be.
Which is the part that makes me grin. A company preaching digital minimalism, selling restraint as a lifestyle, capping the lineup at a $639 model with a gold button on it.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, visit clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Sign up for the free newsletter at more.clownfishtv.com.
Hat Tips:
Engadget (June 16, 2026), verified for the system-level social media, browser, and email block, the Sailfish OS basis, the colorways and pricing, and Christian Simpson’s digital-detox framing
Tom’s Hardware (June 16, 2026), verified for the “no social media, no browser” positioning, the June 30 pre-order date, and the $499 starting price
Notebookcheck (June 16, 2026), verified for the late-2026 delivery window, the full price tiers, and Simpson’s 2025 acquisition plus the ~30,000 C64 Ultimate units sold
Android Police (June 16, 2026), verified for the screen specs, the roadmap, and the company’s history