One of many extra attention-grabbing units at CES 2026 is a phone that does not actually need to be a telephone — at the least not within the trendy sense. The Clicks Communicator harks again to the BlackBerry telephones of previous, that includes an built-in clicky {hardware} keyboard under a display that is smaller than most of in the present day’s telephones. And it is designed primarily to be a distraction-free complement to your present do-everything smartphone.
See additionally: CNET Managing Editor Patrick Holland received some hands-on time with the Clicks Communicator at CES 2026 and declared it one in all his favourite merchandise.
With the tagline, “doing, not doomscrolling,” Clicks Expertise envisions the Communicator as a type of back-to-basics good machine targeted on communication and work. It says the machine primarily pares down all the distractions that include in the present day’s large-screen, social media-centric smartphones. Many individuals have already began carrying a second telephone for privateness or to set boundaries, the corporate mentioned.
Watch this: The Clicks Communicator Cellphone Is My Favourite Factor at CES
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The retro-styled Communicator, priced at $499, hyperlinks as much as your important telephone so you will get emails and texts on it. To be clear, you continue to want a separate smartphone for this machine to work.
A Clicks Communicator hanging out with an iPhone 17 Professional.
Jeff Gadway, the corporate’s chief advertising officer, describes the Communicator’s relationship to your smartphone as what a Kindle is to an iPad. “It is a complementary product that stands by itself, optimized for a particular function,” Gadway mentioned within the Friday announcement.
The keyboard is “touch-sensitive,” so customers can scroll by way of messages with out utilizing the display, and the machine helps voice recordings. Different options embrace a 3.5mm headphone jack, a swap for airplane mode, expandable microSD storage and a bodily SIM tray, in addition to eSIM compatibility. It has a 50-megapixel important digital camera and a 24-megapixel entrance digital camera.
The Communicator, which has Android 16 put in, is 131.5mm tall and weighs 170 grams.
The backplate on the Clicks Communicator will be swapped out for various coloured variations.
At launch, the Communicator is available in three muted colours, together with onyx. You too can swap out the again of the machine for various colours. You’ll be able to pay a reservation deposit of $199. Or in the event you simply need to purchase one earlier than it comes out at an unspecified date “later this yr,” the corporate is providing a $299 early hen value, which is $200 off the launch value.
Clicks’ Energy Keyboard
Along with the Communicator, Clicks additionally introduced on Friday a keyboard for smartphones that attaches to your common telephone through MagSafe or Qi2 magnetic connection and appears like the underside half of a BlackBerry, with those self same old-school buttons, as a substitute of haptics simulating contact.
The magnetic attachment of the Energy Keyboard permits a telephone to be connected in vertical or panorama orientation.
The Power Keyboard has a slider that permits it to be connected to smartphones of various sizes, and you should use the keyboard with a smartphone positioned both vertically or horizontally above it. The Energy Keyboard can also be out there for preorder in the present day at $79. Availability is predicted “within the spring,” the corporate mentioned.
It can be paired with a pill or good TV in addition to AR and VR environments, the corporate mentioned.
“Energy Keyboard brings a constant, assured typing expertise to all of your good units, in a compact keyboard you may take anyplace in your pocket,” Kevin Michaluk, president of Clicks, mentioned in a press release.
