Remember Commodore? If you didn’t play games in the ‘80s or aren’t into retro gaming now, the name might not sound familiar, but you’ll soon become acquainted with it.
An Italian duo named Massimo Canigiani and Carlo Scattolini claim to have gotten rights to the brand and trademark for “Commodore” — the original company went out of business in the mid ‘90s — and plan to use it on a new Commodore PET smartphone. The device is running Android 5.0 and includes customized Commodore 64 and Amiga emulators for your retro gaming needs. There are also gestures and a guest mode included.
In terms of raw specs, the Commodore PET includes a 5.5-inch 1920x1080 display with Gorilla Glass 3, a 1.7GHz octa-core MediaTek processor, 13-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture, a wide angle 8-megapixel front camera, and a 3000mAh battery. Also included is 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage or 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, depending on which model you choose, though both will have a 32GB microSD card installed. Finally, color options will include white, black, and beige.
The Commodore PET is slated to launch in Italy, France, Germany, and Poland later this week, with launches in other European countries as well as America expected later on. As for pricing, the 2GB/16GB model will be around $300, while the 3GB/32GB version will be $365.
With Android 5.0 and a 5.5-inch 1080p display, this Commodore-branded phone seems like a decent enough device. We’ve seen a few even more affordable Android devices that offer some pretty good user experiences lately, though, and they come from established manufacturers like Alcatel OneTouch and ASUS. That said, I’m sure that this Commodore PET phone will sell a few units to folks thirsty for nostalgia.