Rambly thoughts on the Commodore Callback phone
June 16, 2026

*blows dust off the blog*

So... the shambling skinsuit of Commodore (which is presently puppeteered by retro tech YouTuber Christian Simpson aka Perifractic) is releasing a low-end Smartphone masquerading as a Featurephone.

https://commodore.net/callback/

By all accounts... I ought to like it.
It's not Android, but supports Android apps, it doesn't have AI, and it looks delightfully retro. But frankly, I am not a fan of them hard-blocking socials and browsers.

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Now, I get what they are going for.
We are too reliant on smartphones. We do spend too much time on social media, especially of the doomscrolling variety. 
My elevator pitch for this device would be "Digital detox, but you can use [music streaming app] and [messaging app]".

However.

I hate it when a piece of software arbitrarily tells me "no, I won't do that", and keeps me from using hardware as I wish.

If it was merely the default of a setting, I would be fine with it.
If you could turn that hard block off, and instead set strict (per-app, or global) usage limits, I think it would be a neat compromise.

And of course, it is 100% up to them which apps they choose to host on their "Commostore" (their name, not mine), plus they permit installing arbitrary APKs... except, again, not for social media and browsers.

I am hardly a social media poweruser, and as such personally don't care too much about the social media block in particular.
I have my heavily curated Mastodon feed, I begrudgingly lurk-follow a few artists (who only post about their art, and aren't elsewhere) on the butterfly app, I am joined to a grand total of five communities on Discord (and actively participate in two of them, one of which for RP purposes), and I have YouTube and Twitch with - again - heavy curation, where I go out of my way to avoid anything recommendation-shaped. I have no problem with going for a while without any of it if necessary.

But there are many situations where you might need to look something up quickly on the internet - be it out of necessity, like to get the number for a local tow truck or to check the menu of a restaurant before deciding which one to visit, or curiosity, like to get information about a monument or building - and in those situations, a device without a web browser is as useless as a brick, and you would quickly grow tired of the phone's main gimmick.
I get their argumentation stated on the website - the web browser would be "a backdoor" to access social media despite this block (which makes me think they might just have blacklisted specific app IDs), but I think that they could've loosened up on the web browser, and instead implemented a primitive DNS-based block for social media, so that you could still browse the web, but not - for example - Facebook or Instagram.

Anyway... something like this, but less "opinionated" on what I "ought to" use on it would probably be a good compromise between Smart- and Featurephone for me.
Only install the "essentials", like CoMaps, Signal and FinAmp, plus Fennec as a "emergency" web browser, something that syncs my contacts with my home server, and I'd be happy as a clam.