I took up the Clicks Communicator and muscle memory set in. The sculpted keys, the near-square display, and the way in which the phone seemed to beg to be used with both thumbs — it all spoke of BlackBerry at its best without feeling like cosplay. This is a tightly focused, contemporary messaging machine from people who clearly miss the tactile rhythm of typing, and it has the discipline to refrain from mindlessly following in its slab footsteps.
Clicks Technology, run by long-time mobile voices Michael Fisher and Kevin Michaluk, is gambling that in the age of monolithic glass slabs, there’s still an appetite for a purpose-built communicator.
After getting my mitts on near-final hardware mockups, the pitch is sound: keep your photo-mastering monster of a main camera for photography and apps, and pack around something that treats communication as if it’s a first-class workflow.
A Purpose-Built Messaging Phone for Focused Communication
It’s running Android 16, and the interface has been given an upgrade, prioritizing your chats and inbox triage. No more widget-pockmarked home screen: instead, you have a clean, text-forward launcher that’s all about efficiently jumping between conversations, clearing out notifications, and firing off quick replies without having to wade through the distractions of dainty icons.
Clicks casts this as a companion device, instead of attempting to be a full smartphone killer, and that modesty is welcome. It directly targets those who already tote two devices — the creator class, people on the go, and anyone who separates work and personal lines — and optimizes for the thing we all do most on our phones: message. Pew Research and GSMA have continued to note that messaging is one of the most popular daily uses for mobile, and the Communicator is unabashedly optimized for this.
Hardware That Cues a Classic Without Feeling Dated
The hardware list sounds like a power user’s wish granted: a 4-inch near-square display for additional lines of text, a dedicated shortcut button, physical volume rocker and power keys. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack for wired audio, a physical SIM slot to give you carrier flexibility in an era where many flagships are pushing eSIM-only usage, and microSD support up to 2TB for the chat media dump. The removable battery under a swappable plastic shell (pictured in silver and an outdoorsy green) signals both longevity and repairability — an ethos that European regulators have been promoting with new requirements for replaceable batteries.
Crucially, the phone doesn’t feel cramped; it feels thoughtfully small. Modern video-optimized handsets blew past six inches, but a messaging-first device doesn’t need to be the size of a billboard. The near-square screen provides list views space to spread out, with the thumb-to-key travel held low.
A Keyboard That Aspires to Tactility and Speed
Clicks employed a designer who has experience working on earlier BlackBerrys, and it really shows in the lineage. The sculpted keys feel good under the fingers and offer a nice level of travel, along with sensible placement of function tools and shortcuts. This one is in the vein of old BlackBerry touch-sensitive boards — a capacitive board that lets you swipe around keys to scroll through threads or flick a cursor without touching the screen.
You get the intention: reduce context switching, reduce mistakes, and keep you in flow. The research in human-computer interaction has long posited that tactile feedback can reduce typing error rates when compared with keyboards made completely of glass, particularly for power users who develop muscle memory. This board calls for that type of rhythm. After a few minutes I quit hunting and began to fly.
Why This Throwback Makes Sense for Messaging Today
It’s tempting to dismiss a physical keyboard as majoring in nostalgia, but the timing is right. comScore placed BlackBerry smartphone users at around 40% of US subscribers at its peak, evidence that keyboard-first design met a real job: high-throughput, low-friction communication. Now productivity is back in the spotlight again, amidst “notification fatigue” and the popularity of “single-purpose” hardware. “It has been cool to see compact, niche devices continue to build loyal niches while the mainstreams merge,” Counterpoint Research said.
The Communicator also resists disposability. Swappable batteries extend lifespan. Local storage with microSD means less cloud lock-in. One SIM slot takes away travel headaches. They are tiny rebellions against the sealed-off, monolithic phone norm — and they matter to people who spend their days inside messaging apps.
Price, Availability, and the Early Outlook for Clicks
Clicks says the Communicator will be priced at $499, with preorders at $399 and units that ship in the second half of 2021. The company is showing off near-final mockups as opposed to fully functional prototypes, so software fit and finish remains an open question, as does battery life. But the industrial design, hand feel, and keyboard execution already struck all the right notes.
For people who remember typing an email on a BlackBerry without looking down, the Communicator feels like a nostalgic return to that muscle memory — and yet also oddly current, an argument for having a second phone do one thing remarkably well. If Clicks can release stable software and dependable radio performance, this could be the most enticing keyboard phone since the days of old that it so wishfully invokes.
