Working ‘Blackberry remake’ seen in hands-on video for the first time
The Clicks Communicator has made its first proper appearance in action. This gives us our clearest look yet at the modern take on the BlackBerry-style smartphone. The planned launch is later this year.
In a newly published demo, Clicks showed a working pre-production version of the Communicator. This revealed how its physical keyboard, custom Android interface and hardware features come together.
While the company has previously teased the device, this is the first time it’s been seen running day-to-day apps and core features. We got the chance to play with a non-working model at CES 2026, and came away impressed.
The biggest draw remains the physical keyboard. However, the demo suggests there’s more to the Communicator than nostalgia. A vertical ribbon of favourite apps anchors the home screen. This makes it easy to jump into Gmail, Telegram, WhatsApp and Spotify without digging through an app drawer. Users can also begin typing straight from the home screen to quickly search for installed apps.
The keyboard itself packs a few tricks, too. The spacebar doubles as a fingerprint reader. This allows users to unlock the phone or authenticate with their thumb while keeping their hands in a natural typing position. Clicks also confirmed that more software features are on the way, including a touch-sensitive keyboard, Message Hub, Prompt Key, Signal Light and a hardware kill switch. However, these weren’t demonstrated in detail.
The hardware looks surprisingly well equipped for a keyboard-first phone. The Communicator includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo speakers and three microphones for clearer voice calls and recordings. It also has a barometric pressure sensor to improve GPS accuracy and weather data.
Around the back, the removable cover reveals room for both a physical SIM card and a microSD card. The device supports storage expansion up to 2TB. The demo also showed the device connected to a 5G network. In addition, it demonstrated working Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other core smartphone features.
Clicks stressed that the hardware is still in the pre-production stage and expects to refine the internal layout before launch. Even so, the latest demo suggests the Communicator is much closer to becoming a real product than just another nostalgic concept. The company is still targeting a Q4 release.
