{"id":385320,"date":"2026-01-03T09:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T09:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/385320\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T09:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T09:44:14","slug":"two-phones-less-distraction-thats-the-pitch-for-this-blackberry-lookalike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/385320\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Phones, Less Distraction? That’s the Pitch for This BlackBerry Lookalike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember BlackBerry phones? Those iconic biscuit-shaped smartphones<\/a> of the early 2010s with hard plastic buttons placed below simple, low-res touchscreens have inspired the look of a new product from Clicks Technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather than releasing a new smartphone to compete with the likes of the Apple iPhone<\/a> and Samsung’s Galaxy lineup<\/a>, the Clicks Communicator<\/a> is designed to be a device that works alongside the smartphone you already own. It’ll be on display at CES 2026<\/a> next week.<\/p>\n

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET<\/a> as a preferred Google source.<\/p>\n

With the tagline, “doing, not doomscrolling,” Clicks envisions the Communicator as a kind of back-to-basics smart device focused on communication and work. It says the device essentially pares down all of the distractions that come with today’s large-screen, social media-centric smartphones. Many people have already started carrying a second phone for privacy or to set boundaries, the company said.<\/p>\n

The retro-styled Communicator, priced at $499, links up to your main phone so you can get emails and texts on it. To be clear, you still need a separate smartphone for this device to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A Clicks Communicator hanging out with an iPhone 17 Pro.<\/p>\n

Clicks Technology<\/p>\n

Jeff Gadway, the company’s chief marketing officer, describes the Communicator’s relationship to your smartphone to what a Kindle is to an iPad.\u00a0 “It’s a complementary product that stands on its own, optimized for a specific purpose,” Gadway said in the Friday announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The keyboard is “touch-sensitive,” so users can scroll through messages without using the screen, and the device supports voice recordings. Other features include a 3.5mm headphone jack, a switch for airplane mode, expandable micoSD storage, and a physical SIM tray as well as eSIM compatibility. It has a 50-megapixel main camera and a 24-megapixel front camera.<\/p>\n

The Communicator, which has Android 16 installed, is 131.5mm tall and weighs 170 grams.<\/p>\n

At launch, the Communicator comes in three muted colors, including onyx. You can also switch out the back of the device for different colors. You can pay a reservation deposit<\/a> of $199 starting today. Or if you just want to buy one before it comes out at an unspecified date “later this year,” the company is offering a $299 early bird price, which is $100 off the launch price.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/p>\n

The magnetic attachment of the Power Keyboard allows a phone to be attached in vertical or landscape orientation.<\/p>\n

Clicks TechnologyClicks’ Power Keyboard<\/p>\n

In addition to the Communicator, Clicks also on Friday announced a keyboard for smartphones that attaches to your regular phone via MagSafe or Qi2 magnetic connection and looks like the bottom half of a BlackBerry, with those same old-school buttons, instead of haptics simulating touch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Power Keyboard<\/a> has a slider that allows it to be attached to smartphones of different sizes, and you can use the keyboard with a smartphone placed either vertically or horizontally above it. The Power Keyboard is also available for preorder today at $79. Availability is expected “in the spring,” the company said.<\/p>\n

It can also be paired with a tablet or smart TV as well as AR and VR environments, the company said.<\/p>\n

“Power Keyboard brings a consistent, confident typing experience to all your smart devices, in a compact keyboard you can take anywhere in your pocket,” Kevin Michaluk, president of Clicks, said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember BlackBerry phones? Those iconic biscuit-shaped smartphones of the early 2010s with hard plastic buttons placed below simple,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-385320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}