Commodore returns with a smartphone

Commodore was a successful PC manufacturer in the 1980s until ultimately becoming defunct in 1994. The company is back, however, and has announced that it is planning on releasing a smartphone that runs on Android. The name of the smartphone is PET, the same name of its first PC. This kind of announcement from the once-bankrupt company begs the question: is the former powerhouse poised for a big comeback?

Commodore's smartphone is outfitted with an aluminum frame and an interchangeable polycarbonate backplate. Like many other smartphones, it will also have a 5.5 inch 1920x1080 IPS display. Running a customized version of Android 5.0 Lollipop, the processor is a MediaTek chip clocked at 1.7GHz. So far, the components seem par-for-the-course. A 13MP rear-facing camera and 8MP front-facing camera are included with PET, and there does not seem to be much in the way of innovation, as far as the specs are concerned.

The one area in which the PET sets itself apart is that it comes pre-loaded with two emulators to play classic games on. Two versions will be released, one with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, and the other with 32GB storage and 3GB of RAM. Both will include a 32GB micro SD card for extra capacity, which is a nice touch. The two versions will cost $300 and $365 respectively, and there seems to be a reasonable amount of value to be found within the PET. The device will release this week in Europe, and could be the first of many new products from Commodore.

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