Italian businessmen Massimo Canigiani and Carlo Scattolini have acquired the rights to the Commodore brand name in several countries across the world and have designed a new smartphone called the "Commodore PET," despite having no direct connection to the 8-bit computer it shares its name with, according to Fox News.
Commodore, a brand still widely remembered, was a popular company in the mid-1980s and a frontrunner in personal computers, shipping thousands of Commodore 64 PC's on a daily basis. According to Guinness, the Commodore 64 desktop was the single best-selling computer ever, having sold nearly 17 million units in total, according to Wired.
The Commodore PET features a 1.7GHz octa-core Mediatek processor, 5.5 inch screen protected by Gorilla Glass 3, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and an 8-megapixel front camera. Both cameras can be controlled with a dedicated shutter button, according to Engadget.
The phone also boasts a sizeable 3000mAH battery but what really sets the phone apart from other Android handsets is the inclusion of two emulators: VICEC64 and Uae4All-SDL Amiga, which can emulate Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga games, respectively.
The smartphone is expected to launch in Italy, France, Poland and Germany later this month in two models, a 16GB/2GB ram model will retail for $300 and a 32GB/3GB ram model will cost about $60 more. The company has also revealed future plans to launch the product in other European countries and North America, IGN reported.
