One of many extra attention-grabbing gadgets at CES 2026 is a telephone that does not actually wish to be a telephone — at the very 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 beneath a display screen that is smaller than most of right now’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 obtained some hands-on time with the Clicks Communicator at CES 2026 and declared it one among his favourite merchandise.
With the tagline, “doing, not doomscrolling,” Clicks Expertise envisions the Communicator as a type of back-to-basics good gadget targeted on communication and work. It says the gadget primarily pares down all the distractions that include right now’s large-screen, social media-centric smartphones. Many individuals have already began carrying a second telephone for privateness or to set boundaries, the corporate stated.
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 essential telephone so you will get emails and texts on it. To be clear, you continue to want a separate smartphone for this gadget to work.
A Clicks Communicator hanging out with an iPhone 17 Professional.
Jeff Gadway, the corporate’s chief advertising and marketing 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 goal,” Gadway stated within the Friday announcement.
The keyboard is “touch-sensitive,” so customers can scroll by means of messages with out utilizing the display screen, and the gadget helps voice recordings. Different options embody 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 essential digicam and a 24-megapixel entrance digicam.
The Communicator, which has Android 16 put in, is 131.5mm tall and weighs 170 grams.
The backplate on the Clicks Communicator could 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 gadget for various colours. You may pay a reservation deposit of $199. Or when you simply wish to purchase one earlier than it comes out at an unspecified date “later this 12 months,” the corporate is providing a $299 early hen worth, which is $200 off the launch worth.
Clicks’ Energy Keyboard
Along with the Communicator, Clicks additionally introduced on Friday a keyboard for smartphones that attaches to your common telephone by way of 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 hooked up in vertical or panorama orientation.
The Energy Keyboard has a slider that enables it to be hooked up 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 right now at $79. Availability is predicted “within the spring,” the corporate stated.
It can be paired with a pill or good TV in addition to AR and VR environments, the corporate stated.
“Energy Keyboard brings a constant, assured typing expertise to all of your good gadgets, in a compact keyboard you possibly can take wherever in your pocket,” Kevin Michaluk, president of Clicks, stated in an announcement.
