Commodore, the leader in personal computers back in the 1980s,will be releasing an Android smartphone in Europe later this week. The Commodore PET will be the company's first smartphone, it will run a custom variant of Android 5.0 and will come preloaded with two emulators for some retro-style gaming. As for the specs, the PET will feature a 5.5-inch IPS display, along with a 1.7 GHz Mediatek 64-bit octa-core processor. Commodore is packing a 3,000mAh battery inside, along with a 13MP rear facing camera, and an 8MP front facing camera, both of which can be operated by a dedicated shutter button on the side of the phone.
Commodore will be launching two different versions of the PET, one with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, and one with 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM. The 16GB model will run for around $300, while the 32GB model will go for around $365. Both models will come with a 32GB microSD card included, and will come in white, black, or a classic beige color. Initially, the Commodore PET will be available in Italy, France, Germany, and Poland, with plans to expand to the US and other European countries in the near future.
Source: Wired
Reader comments
Commodore returns, prepares Android smartphone for launch in Europe
i want one. decent price, too. hope AC gives us a heads-up when it's available in the US
Wow. Now there's a name that I haven't heard in a while. I used to dial up with a C64 at 300kbps to my University mainframe in the mid eighties. Saved the files to a cassette tape! Wow.
After reading this article on Android Police, I'm much less excited about this device.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/07/14/commodore-is-not-back-baby-compa...
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If Samsung drops sd card support on their flagships, it would mean less sales of their own Samsung evo sd cards.
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Remember beachhead?, double dribble?, pitfall?
Blue max, M.U.L.E., Paradroid, Maniac Mansion...
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I think more time needs to pass in order to see how this all plays out. The fact that the domain name commodoresmart.com was only registered for 1yr and is expiring this December concerns me a little bit. Also to be completely removed from their database after subscribing to their mailing list you have to send an email to massimocanigiani@gmail.com; that's kinda odd.
I'm not seeing a Rick Roll video anywhere, did I miss something?
It should've been beige...
For extreme nostalgia.
Anyway, I'm surprised that Commodore is still around. Glad to see they're still alive!
With a brown built in keyboard. Hopefully cassette tape expansion capability too. LOL.
They're doing this all wrong. They should have called the phone the Amiga and come out with 64GB and 128 GB models. Capitalize on the nostalgia.
Unfortunately this is an end of a list of companies who have owned the commodore brand, nothing to do with the original company. Amiga is owned by another company altogether who last I check are still developing the original Amiga os
Rain meet parade. C'mon, can we not have just a little fun? I promise it won't hurt. :-)
Built in C64 Emulator.....!!!
My money... take it all!!!
Off the hook awesome. I have been waiting for something cool to come along and it sure has. This is beyond cool. Oh the memories of sprits and sprites...
At least it has a micro SD slot.
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"will come in white, black, or a classic beige color. " ha! Classic Beige, that's a fashion trend right there.
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Forget the micro SD slot. Can I plug in my 1764 ram expansion unit which I previously upgraded with a second row of ram chips?
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plenty of Amiga games run perfectly on android via emulator. Amegarace, Hybris, Rick Dangerous are STILL awesome.
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
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Call it a VIC-20 and take my money.
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This better be called the commodore 64, with that 64 bit chip and all...
With a Mediatek chip and a custom version of Android, this probably won't see many updates.
Time to dig out that VIC20, 1542 floppy drive and my 300 bps Modem.
Those were the days
...Actually had a C128 not a Vic20 ...and a. 1572...and some other stuff I can't remember...it was the 1980's man.
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Wow this need for these front facing cameras with these high megapixel counts is ridiculous. I don't even take selfies like that lol
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WoW!! So many memories with my C64! Some of my friends got the Macintosh while I got the C64. I had over 1000 games on those floppy disks, lol! Good times!!
What's up with all the samsung hate just don't buy there phones. There plenty of options, samsung is just in a transition faze of making storage,ram,cpu all in one chip to benefits the consumer but we complain. In the mobile industry if you don't change with technology you will be left behind. I like samsung just for the fact they try different ideas. It don't always work out but it mane othere companies atleast try different stuff too
Comes preloaded with lemonade stand cassette right?
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No, that one is on a cartridge.
What the what? Not only is it insane that they are making a cell phone, but I didn't even know they were still around. Is July 14th the new April 1st?
It's not the original company. The Commodore brand has been passed around like a hot potato for decades. Many of the owners have promised new devices but haven't really delivered.
Indeed, I think it is misleading to say it is Commodore bringing out a smartphone. Commodore has been dead for years, it is just their name that lives on.
This is supposed to be a news site, a little background info telling us who actually now owns the Commodore brand, and hence who is actually behind this release, would be good.
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Sorry, you're on the wrong site for that. Actually its the right site, just the wrong time period. The Android Central that did a complete job of reporting things died some time ago. This new Android Central is...well, I don't really know what it is, but its not really about Android related news anymore.
I wondered about this too, which is why we invited them to our podcast for an interview and they agreed! All of it can be heard, here: http://sceneworld.org/blog/2015/09/25/podcast-episode-13-commodore-busin... enjoy :)
Wow! Just wow! I never thought I'd see the Commodore logo on a new product again. Just goes to show... Never say "never".
*Yawn* They need to come harder than this, or just do software. I'd love to buy their emulators.
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Ah the C-64. i wrote many a high school and college paper on that puppy. 1541 Floppy Drive. MPS-80 Printer. 64Modem. 1701 Monitor. Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Summer Olympics, Commando. lots of great memories. it's right up there with the Palm Pilot in terms of nostalgia.
almost forgot about Impossible Mission.
"Stay awhile. Stay forever!". The first voice synthesis on the Commodore 64. That game was genius.
"aaahhhhhhh!!!!"
you know.
I had one Gekko. Had the Pilot IIIe SE too. I'm a lucky man!
My Gosh. Memories of school and my trusty C64, then college with my C128 and after college with my Amiga 500...
+1000000 for Nostalgia
Will it come with Attack of the Mutant Camels?
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Now this I want. Yes. Want.
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Go Commodore:
VIC-20 for Starter Phone
C-64 Upgraded Version (64 GB Memory)
C-128 Upgraded version (128 GB Memory)
Amiga: VR Headset
SO need to have this as a boot logo, the old time <Computer Voice>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV8r__JUIqs
That's some upgrade! Commodore C-64 came with 64 KILO bytes of memory, 128 with 128 KILO bytes. How did you manage to get 64 and 128 GB into those puppies? ;)
The PET. Cute. I played with one of those, the PC that is. The Amiga was their best product, designed by engineers for their competitor, Atari.
This phone needs the classic red and white bouncing ball as a live wallpaper or at least as a demo program.
The Amiga was NOT designed by atari. It was designed by Amiga which called it the Lorraine. They had intended to sell it to Atari but were short on capital and we're eventually bought outright by Commodore, who outbid Atari (then lead by ousted Commodore head Jack Tramiel) in the process. But the original groundwork was done at Amiga.
The lead designer Jay Miner had formerly worked at Atari but left to go help start Amiga with a bunch of other Atari folks.
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You are correct. The first time I played with a real Amiga running the famous New Tek demo was a revelatory moment in my life. It was a genius design. Too bad Commodore botched its marketing.
Where's my ZX Spectrum + phone |
Sinclair Spectrumphone+4 128gb with a rubber case that has a squidgy keyboard and only 8 colours.. Take my money Sir Clive!
Take my money!
The question is, can I plug my cassette deck into it?
I want one just run my favorite C64 games
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That would be awesome!
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as long as the emulator is done well and the controls work well, i am totally with you!
I somehow suspect that this phone is gonna suck, and yet I want one more than anything.
awesomesauce!
32GB of storage? How many cassette tapes will it take for that amount?
(I can't be the only one who remembers the Commodore tape drive.....)
"It's faster than typing"
I had the c64 tape drive. The tapes had games and programs at different spots on the tape counter.
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Oh, yes. The Commodore Datasette. I've still got one in the garage somewhere, right next to my 1541 floppy drive.
Still have my Commodore 64D packed away. This almost makes me want to fire it up again.
I had the tape drive. It took an interminable amount of time to load programs. Compute! Gazette came out with a program that compressed programs on the tapes a bit but it was still very slow for an impatient 13-year old. I managed with just a tape drive for a couple years and finally got a 1541 along with its head alignment problems.
I still have a 64, 1541 drive, Amiga 500 and 1084 monitor in my garage along with some games. It all still works.
I can't be the only one who remembers a Commodore VIC-20....or am I ?????
No. 3K of RAM. I used to play with a VIC-20 at the local drug store. By the time I'd saved enough lawn-mowing money for a computer the 64 was out.
Elon Musk is quoted as saying that the VIC-20 was his first computer.
The VIC-20 was the first computer that I got to play with. My neighbour had one. A little later, my teacher had a Commodore 64, and he'd bring it in for us to play around with. Those were the days . . . .
Not at all, it was my first computer...
Radar Rat Race ftw!
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@Joshmccullough You would probably need a 20 foot U-Haul moving truck to carry all the cassettes.
Vic 20 or gtfo
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I loved my vic 20!
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Makes me want to dig my old PET out of the closet and fire that bad boy up....This is the full-size keyboard one, not the one with the little chicklet keyboard..Man I used to have fun with that box...
"immature chuckle"
The PET 2001 chicklet keyboard was what I learned to program on in 1979. The math dept at our high school bought one, it was the model with the tape recorder and tiny keyboard. Those keys were hard to type on, no space between the keys so every keystroke was a fatfinger exercise.
I want one! I want the Amiga 3000 version!
LOAD *,8,1
Might be the greatest comment ever.
LOAD "twitter",8,1 would be more likely these days.
The asterisk loaded the default program on a floppy. In the case of a Twitter floppy it would still be *.
Best comment for 2015
You even got the all-caps right but you forgot to double-quote the asterisk.
Ah..the memories.
You win the internet today, sir.
I so want this... Lets hope they even make it go gradually from white to yellow over a few years lol. That logo has a lot of memories...
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same here!! I cant WAIT for this to come to the us. even if it sux, i want one just for the memories!! And i seriously hope it has all the good games for the emulator. CANT WAIT!!
Hey Samsung... See??? They are putting an SD Card slot on their phone... SEE SEE????
Hahaha, this x1000. I'm confident when Samsung drops the ball by failing to provide what users want, others will fill their shoes.
I loved the C64!
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Believe it or not, if most users wanted/needed a microSD Samsung probably would of kept it. I'm not saying people that want it don't deserve to be heard, just that it likely isn't important to most of their customers.
+1 obviously these two users know more about the phone business than Samsung
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Giving how many phones Samsung throw out each year and their constant dwindling sales and scaled back productions, it looks like they don't know as much about mobiles as you think.
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The fact that they are still the number one smartphone manufacturer in the world looks like they do know as much about mobiles as I think.
BlackBerry was number one not long ago. They failed to give the user what they wanted and went down quickly. It's taking one hell of a fight to try and come back.
Are Samsung smartphone sales currently going up or down?
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The last great Samsung phone to come out was the Note 4. Options=power! Plain and simple....... There is no arguing against that.
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So you really think people have been avoiding phones with an SD card slot?
That's pretty naive. More likely they believe removing these features are things they can get away with, not necessarily that people want them to. Big corporations always try to pull stuff like this to increase profits and reduce expenses.
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Google did it first with Nexus phones. And it is a big Mistake because Carriers are price gouging data tiers.
Sure in a perfect world with Unlimited Data for all, cloud storage instead of sd cards would be great
This x1000!!! ⬆ I'm surprised more propel don't recognize this. Cloud storage is great, but every time you have to move it or access it, you use data that you normally wouldn't have to.
Also, Samsung's design direction seems to be following Apple. Apple isn't as popular as they are because of hardware, they have made the public perceive their brand name as premium, like Bentley or Coach. Samsung cannot win those people over by copying Apple, they need to find their own design direction and follow it.
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"Both models will come with a 32GB microSD card included."
Storage is no problem.
Samsung doesn't make phones for people like us anymore. Now Samsung makes phones for the people who blindly follow trends.
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If it looks like an Apple....feels like an Apple...
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That's what made Samsung stand out from the crowd......"Options "! Now they are turning into just another smartphone manufacturer. All this talk about sd cards and speed is silly and pathetic. I have a 64gb sd card in one of my Samsung devices that's loaded with over 10,000 songs and over 30,000 pictures. It runs just fine. It's amazing how some of you are so easily persuaded into believing and buying what you are told. Options=power... Plain and simple. Anybody that says otherwise is just arguing for the sake of arguing.
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I agree but will add that While we appreciate a removable back and SD card unfortunately I'm afraid we're in the minority. Most of my friends who own a note 3 or 4 made their purchase based on brand recognition or the Sammy marketing machine. For them neither expandable memory or a removable battery were selling points. A friend of mine never considered acquiring a spare battery until I suggested it. The add-ons S pen, split screen and size won them over. I too believe in options and hope they'll come out with two varients; sealed back and removable back. One for those indifferent and to enthusiasts like us.
Exactly
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Oh, I dunno, the LG G4 seems to be doing pretty well thus far, and it's all about options.
+100
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VZW Moto X 2014/DE 2013/N7
Sd cards are far too slow to work with modern phone memory and cpu. I'm happy with my S6
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Wooooo Hooooo
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Woooo Hoooo for Zork
My email signature says "Sent from my C64 ePhone" already...I guess it will finally be accurate!