The physical keyboard phone is getting a modern reboot with real hardware for privacy-conscious users. Clicks has opened preorders for the Communicator, a compact Android 17 smartphone that puts a four-row tactile keyboard, a hardware kill switch, and a removable rear cover into a package measuring 13.05 x 7.86 x 1.2 cm (5.14 x 3.09 x 0.47 inches) and weighing 170 g (6.0 oz). The kill switch can be configured to trigger do-not-disturb mode, airplane mode, or disable the notification LED, giving users a physical off-ramp from connectivity without diving into software menus.
Under the hood, the Communicator runs a MediaTek Dimensity 8300 on a 4nm process, with four Cortex-A715 cores at up to 3.35 GHz, four Cortex-A510 efficiency cores, a Mali-G615 MC6 GPU, and MediaTek's APU 780 for on-device AI workloads. It ships with 12 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256 GB of UFS 4.0 storage, expandable via microSD up to 2 TB. Connectivity covers 5G NR, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, and NFC, with dual-SIM support through a physical nano-SIM and eSIM. The 4.03-inch AMOLED display runs at 1080 x 1200 resolution, and the phone includes a 50 MP optically stabilized rear camera, a 24 MP front camera, USB-C, Qi2 wireless charging, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Clicks partnered with the team behind Niagara Launcher to build a custom "Message Hub" interface that aggregates conversations from WhatsApp, Signal, Slack, and other platforms into a single chronological feed on the home screen. The keyboard itself is touch-sensitive for scrolling without reaching up to the display, and a dedicated side-mounted "Prompt Key" doubles as a programmable notification LED that can be color-coded per app or contact. Keyboard layouts will be available in QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTZ, Korean, and Arabic configurations. The device has already drawn interest from the /e/OS community, suggesting that users are watching for custom ROM compatibility once the hardware ships. That interest comes with a notable caveat: GrapheneOS said in January 2026 that the Communicator would never be added to its supported device list, citing the phone's software update commitment as falling short of what the project requires from supported hardware (PiunikaWeb). Whether the bootloader can be unlocked at all remains an open question among privacy-focused users, including advocate Jonah Aragon, who publicly asked Clicks whether the phone would support bootloader unlocking and custom AVB keys the way Google's Pixel line does, a question still without a public answer.
Clicks is promising four years of Android version updates (through at least Android 20) and a minimum of five years of security patches, with Android StrongBox support for hardware-backed secure storage. The company opted for a conventional 4,350 mAh lithium-ion battery rated for over 800 charge cycles after its testing found that silicon-carbon cells failed standard qualification tests at higher rates. The rear cover is replaceable, and the nano-SIM and microSD slots sit beneath it, though the battery itself is not user-swappable.
The Communicator is available for preorder at $499 (€459) through 2026-09-30, after which the price rises to $649 (€597). Shipments are expected to begin in December 2026.
