The Clicks Communicator

Welcome to the Offline Online Podcast.

My name’s Andrew and hope everyone has had a good new year to the start of 2026.

Now I did have a different episode planned and recorded for today but in reviewing it I wasn’t entirely happy with it so instead I want to talk about some recent news about a device that has been announced at CES this year, which is the Klix Communicator.

For those who haven’t heard about it, Klix Communicator, if you think about an old BlackBerry style device, it’s a keyboard phone with a very small squarish screen, runs Android and it’s gotten a bit of press, especially among people who are looking for those old BlackBerry style phones or something that’s more intentional for use for communication instead of consumption.

So clearly it’s a device I’ve been interested in.

I’m currently using a Minimal phone, which is a pretty similar thing, instead of a regular screen though, it uses an ePaper screen, so much like a Kindle.

So I’ve been using that, it’s been very good for me in terms of being intentional with how I use my phone, and I think some people may look at the Klix Communicator device as something similar.

So I just want to talk about that a little bit, go over the differences and what to expect and what to look out for if you do end up getting this device.

I should say this device is still very much in development from what I know.

There’s not even a live prototype that it’s shown off yet, and they are saying at the end of 2026, which is actually pretty ambitious for a company that hasn’t made a phone before, so keep that in mind if you are deciding to put down some money to pre-order this.

You might hopefully get it by the end of the year, but there is a chance that it might get pushed out depending on how they go with developing the rest of the phone.

Now personally I think the team have done a fairly poor job in market placement for this device.

A lot of their discussions is around this as a secondary phone, as a complementary device to your primary smartphone.

However, in the small print and whenever asked, they do say yeah, you can use this as a primary phone.

So outside of the marketing, this is an Android device that you can use as your regular smartphone.

If you don’t need the best camera, I’m assuming the camera’s not going to be spectacular compared to your Apple iPhones, your Samsungs, or your Google Pixels, but it’ll be adequate enough.

Or if you’re the type of person that likes to play a lot of games or use a lot of social media on your phone, this is not really going to be that device for you.

But that’s kind of the whole point of a device that is meant to be more intentional on how you use it.

The fact that it’s got a smaller screen, the hardware keyboard, it’s got those physical limitations in order to help you be more intentional.

And I say help because it’s not necessarily going to do that.

If you really have a problem with say scrolling TikTok, which is probably one of the more common examples that you find, TikTok’s that vertical screen, vertical video format.

So on that small square screen that the Klix Communicator has, it’s going to look weird because it’s basically vertical video on a very small screen.

So you’re going to have a lot of black bars on the side.

It’s not going to be a great experience.

But technically you can still do it.

So if you have that habit and you’re expecting this phone to absolutely prevent you from doing that, it’s not going to happen.

The Klix Communicator is basically a regular Android phone.

It just has some physical limitations to try and help you be more in that communication and intentional side rather than that consumption side.

But you can still watch your TikTok videos.

You can still scroll social media.

You can still watch YouTube videos.

This is where the Klix Communicator is going to be a little bit different from some of the other options that are available for intentional phone usage that are on the market.

As I mentioned earlier, I use the Minimal phone at the moment.

The Minimal phone has that e-paper display.

So it’s much like a Kindle.

So that’s an additional layer of physical limitation to prevent me from consuming a lot on that device instead of being more intentional.

Now the Minimal phone runs also full Android, but because of that screen, if I try and watch TikTok on it, it’s a terrible experience.

E-paper or e-ink displays aren’t designed for fast refresh rate or to watch video.

There are some devices out there that try and manipulate the refresh rate in order to make it work, but the Minimal phone is a very cheap e-paper display, so it’s not good at that fast refresh rate at all.

So watching video on it is technically possible, but it’s an awful experience.

So it has that limitation within the display in order to make consumption of video a less pleasing experience and you don’t want to do it rather than being limited by the software preventing you from installing the apps in the first place.

Which is the way some other devices go, such as your dumb phones which don’t have the apps at all or something like the Light Phone which is more of that semi-traditional smartphone hardware experience.

But again, they have that limited software, so it only has a bunch of apps that they have provided and none of them are around consuming media outside of music listening or podcasts.

They don’t have a video social media app on their device.

So when it’s released, the Klix Communicator is going to be an interesting option for a certain set of people who are looking for that type of device, but who probably have methods in place themselves to prevent themselves being distracted by certain applications or certain services on their mobile phones.

If you have real problems with that, I don’t think the restrictions that the Communicator has is enough to make that change for you.

It might be the trigger for some people to review how they use their phone and hopefully make those better choices moving forward, but the phone itself is not going to prevent you from doing that.

So if you are expecting that level of restriction from the device, I don’t think this is it.

If you are looking to be more focused on communication and develop the habits to prevent yourself from being distracted by other types of apps that are social media on your phone, this could be an option.

So that’s the podcast for today.

There’s going to be a lot more to be discovered about the Klix Communicator before it is released, so while there’s a lot more to talk about now, a lot of it is speculation, so over the year I’m hoping to see more of it.

If there’s anything of relevance, I’ll bring it up in this podcast, but I’ll also write about it a lot on my blog, and if you are interested in that, I’ll leave a link in the show notes to that, as well as a link to the website for Offline Online Podcast.

If you have any questions or comments, there is a link there to email.

Please feel free to reach out.

I’ll be happy to take on any feedback or any questions that you may have, and if there’s anything that you want me to discuss or have a topic for this podcast, I’d really love to hear that too.

In the meantime, thanks for listening in, and it’s time to get offline.

We’ll see you in the next episode.