People who bought a Commodore typewriter in the 1950s probably weren’t particularly interested in the C64 in the 1980s either.
It would be more interesting to talk about the actual merits of the product.
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There aren't any merits to talk about. A flip phone is still a nostalgia play. If someone is nostalgic about flip phones, they're nostalgic about a Nokia, Commodore was long gone by the era of flip phones. And, you can still buy flip phones from a variety of manufacturers, including Nokia, for under $100. A dumb phone, including from reputable manufacturers, is extremely easy and cheap to come by, if that's what you want. A dumb phone is a commodity with many suppliers.
This product at this price is entirely about leveraging the Commodore brand, and it's leveraging the brand in an incoherent direction. If I thought they were making astronomical margins on a low upfront cost, I would think, "OK, fine, do your little experiment, though I don't like you degrading the brand for no good reason." But, I don't think they're going to make astronomical margins and I don't think the upfront cost is low. I think they're spending a lot of money on a product that will be a flop.
> There aren't any merits to talk about. A flip phone is still a nostalgia play.
In my country we have a sizeable religious community which eschew the smartphone. Dumb phones sell here very well - on merit alone, no nostalgia.
And, there's no shortage of those. Do those religious folks often buy luxury products?
I don't know the answer to that! I would imagine that some do. I'll try to talk to some of them, thank you for the point of view.
I don't think there are any particularly reputable brands of featurephones anymore. Nokia/HMD certainly isn't one: they have obnoxious bugs, they drop calls, and lack basic modern-day compatibility features like emoji in text messages (they display only an "unknown character" box) and group MMS.
However, it does not necessarily mean there is demand for a quality featurephone: it might be that the demand is so low that it does not make sense to manufacture one.