From HERE
What does Fractic mean?
Back in school, a gifted kid told me to memorise “Chrisostomatico-perifractic-habitanamala-culacatescia-bobblers” as my new name, meaning “a man who is coated in gold”. This nickname stuck and led to others being named similarly, like Ladyfractic and Puppyfractic.
The Callback 8020 is set to be released in five variants. The BASIC Beige, ProtoPET White, and SX Silver models will each cost €499.99. Commodore is charging €549.99 for the transparent Starlight Edition. The Founders Edition, with a gold-plated “C=" key and gold-colored casing, will be offered for €640.
They are a lovely looking phone, but I’m sure that they must be targeting a niche section of the market.
There are definitely people that are pretentious enough to spend an extra €140 on an already expensive phone, so that they can have the gold plated “C=” on the front of the phone. I guess I know who they are targeting with these, and I’m glad I’m not one of them.
If they wanted to do it properly they could take a leaf out of the pages from STOKITI or EDRI - but they don’t want to do it properly. They just want to seem like they are doing something, while gathering data and profiteering at the same time. I would imagine Starmer and the rest of them have wet dreams about this shit and wake up with sticky cotton pyjamas every morning.
This is nothing to do with the interests of Big Tech, this guy has used old Big Tech design to sell a nice looking product, for a premium price. People in general don’t like to part with that much money for something that is described as a “secondary device” that limits their capabilities in a way that they should be able to do themselves. Most smartphones already have digital wellbeing and parental controls on them. There are also tons of guides and apps on how to limit or restrict things on your smartphone that you can buy for a fraction of the price.
His pricing is all wrong, no doubt he will sell a few at that price to collectors, enthusiasts and some people that think it’s worth it. But at the end of the day, at this pricepoint, the phone will surely fall by the wayside.
There are plenty of other phones trying with the same idea, but similarly, the high prices put people off, and many of those have premium features (ghost phone, light phone) The ghost phone also offers cheaper alternatives. For a retro look you have the Punkt phone or many others.