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Commodore PET Smartphone Comes Loaded With C64 and Amiga Emulators
Mickeycaskill writes: Commodore is launching an Android-powered smartphone that lets 1980s gaming fans play their favourite retro titles. It runs a custom version of Android 5.0 Lollipop and lets you play both old Commodore 64 and Amiga games with its preinstalled VICE C64 and Uae4All2-SDL Amiga emulators. Configurations vary between 2GB and 3GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of storage, with a 5.5 inch display and 1.7GHz processor included in all versions. The Catch? It's only available in France, Germany, Italy and Poland to begin with, but other markets are set to follow.
Android Police did some digging and (ignoring the fact that the Commodore name is currently owned by the creditors of Asiarim Corp - who created a new company called C= and have done nothing more than make a website for it back in 2013) it looks to be a carbon copy of the Orgtec WaPhone.
On the upside, it does have some Amiga emulators loaded onto the phone - but you can easily get them from Google Play yourself.
TL;DR? It's unlikely to be Commodore, its a heavily marked up skinned phone and uses the MediaTek MT6752 chip - so you should probably keep away.
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Commodore, as a company, has not existed for a very, very long time. This is simply the product of companies buying or licensing the trademarks. And no, it isn't meant as a business for the long term. It's simply cashing in on the trademark's nostalgic value while it still has some value.
As an aside, this isn't the first Commodore phone. If I recall correctly, they were selling office equipment before they were a computer manufacturer. One of their products was a rotary phone.
Is there still a company called Commodore which owns this stuff? I assumed it was long since dead and gone.
There is a zombie of a trademark still shuffling along. The original company itself is long dead and has remained buried.
The article refers to a "Commodore 64 games console." There's no such thing. The C64 was a fully user-programmable computer which also played games. The link in the article for "Commodore 64 games console" brings you to an article about a totally unrelated computer, the ZX Spectrum. Nerd rage engaged.