Clicks Communicator is like a modern BlackBerry with a few new tricks (but it’s designed to be a secondary device)
The idea is that this is a phone you can use to communicate on the go, while leaving your primary phone at home.
So we’ve come full circle, with mobile phones now being big and bulky so we get mobiler phones that are slightly less huge. What nonsense. Just fucking sell me a small phone!
Galaxy Fold 7. It’s awesome. Apple will invent a folder in 2027.
Are you kidding me? That’s a huge phone you can turn into a tablet. The outer display is 6.5". If anything, I’d want a flip and only use the outer display, but I’m not paying a thousand bucks for a phone with a gimmicky hinge that I don’t need.
You can use it as a primary phone as well. It doesn’t have to be a secondary, just an option.
Just sell me a wireless telephone receiver that I can plug a wired handset into. I used to love taking calls like that, wire coming out of my jacket, walking around. Huge asshole I probably looked like, but it was funny.
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Second sentence in the article, emphasis mine:
It has an AMOLED touchscreen display
$399 USD, $199 to reserve
Who needs a “secondary device for folks willing to juggle two smartphones”? Who would want this?
“Well, see, I have my phone in one pocket, then I have my second phone in my other pocket…”
“Are you a drug dealer, or something?”
“No, no, no. It’s just that my secondary device does fewer things slightly differently, so sometimes I decided to use it instead of my phone.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Look at the keyboard, it’s like an old-school Blackberry. It’s cool, right? Don’t you think it’s cool?”
I did really like my Blackberry Q10 and this looks like it could be a fitting spiritual successor. I’m keeping my eye on it.
Unfortunately Clicks didn’t provide any of the actually useful information for determining whether it’s a phone worth buying. RAM and CPU (not just a vague notion that it’ll have something modern) are important factors though most people will be fine enough with anything that’s outside of low-end. They also don’t say anything about whether the bootloader can be unlocked so I have to assume it is permanently locked, which guarantees that any niche following the Communicator gets will be stunted and die with the device.
It also seems like Clicks has a UK address despite them shipping from the USA, so that’s an immediate veto for me. If they shipped from the UK or any other American country that’d be fine with me.
I do agree with this. I’d love to know more about the software, especially about how long it’s going to be supported. I hope they release more info closer to release.
Call me when someone puts GrapheneOS onto old unsold Blackberry Passports. I’d be all over that. I think I’m one of the few who LOVED that design swing-and-a-miss.
I wasn’t a fan. But the older handset RIGHT after they traded the clitwheel for a micro touchpad (for scrolling and clicking) and before the keyboards started collapsing; that was the sweet spot for me.
I’d switch from this to that again in an instant (with a headphone jack and Qi and reverse-qi, that is, as I have those now and they’re life-changing).
I admit im kind of tempted, but it feels too much like vaporware right now.
Welp older android blackberries with physical keyboards are still around, if you don’t need the latest and greatest you could always try those
As far as I’ve been able to find, they’re all on the 3G network which has terrible coverage to no carrier service at all.
Key2, even Priv support Lte from what i could find
“Here’s a dumb phone to take with you so that you can leave your smart phone at home and not be constantly addicted to it.”
Ummmm…have they forgotten that tablet’s exist? Just get a dumb phone and use your tablet when you’re at home. You don’t need another fucking device.
My smartphone has nothing on it as far as games, social media, etc… It’s got calendar, phone, email, etc…
The fun stuff in on my tablet at home.
Why the fuck would I need another device so that I can keep TWO devices at home?
This is just idiot marketing departments trying to wriggle their greedy little dicks into a population that is waking up to their own technology addiction. Here…fight your technology addiction with…more technology.
Humanity is fucking doomed.
They should have put a LoRa radio in it for use with MeshCore.
I think there’s a good reason we moved to on-screen keyboards. Better utilization of screen real estate. That display is absolutely miniscule. And they’re only going to give it 2 years of updates. So pretty much just a worse device on all accounts, in my opinion.
onscreen controls are garbage. also 3.5mm… better then any phone on the market imo
Lots of devices still have 3.5mm. Unfortunately this premium feature is reserved for otherwise-garbage-tier devices.
still better then dealing with samsung
At least your Samsung device will last >2 years.
looking at how fast my samsung that I stupidly bought can’t hold a charge for more then 2-3 hours under that 2 year mark, I highly doubt it.
Replace the battery…?
Same as MicroSD
Better use of real estate for consumption. For pretty much any sort of input, whether that’s text or controls, onscreen buttons have always been terrible and workarounds like Swype only helped somewhat, and now even that’s getting enshittified. This is going to be a more niche device, as blackberried were, but for people who need a device primarily for email/messaging/other text input on the go the screen is plenty big enough to work and a keyboard is light-years better than any non-tactile technology could ever be.
Agree to disagree I suppose. But I have XXL hands and fat fingers so maybe that’s why.
I have small hands and tiny blackberry style keyboards have always been too fiddly and difficult to use
Fair enough, I’ve got pretty tiny hands so the fastest I’ve ever been able to type was on one of those slide out keyboards on a pre-droid messaging phone
