Clicks Keyboard Phone Ships in December, Price Rises Oct. 1
Clicks will start shipping its Communicator smartphone in December, and the price will rise from $499 to $649 on October 1. Engadget
Orders placed before October keep the lower price. Orders placed after that date pay the higher price for the same December shipment window.
The company raised two core specifications before production. RAM, or short-term memory, moves from 8GB to 12GB, and battery capacity moves from 4,000mAh to 4,350mAh. The battery is rated for more than 800 full charge cycles. GlobeNewswire
The phone will ship with Android 17, with OS updates through Android 20 and five years of security updates.
The design centers on a physical keyboard below a 4.03-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling. The keyboard surface is touch-sensitive for scrolling and navigation, and the spacebar doubles as a fingerprint sensor. The chassis measures 130.5mm x 78.63mm x 12mm and weighs 170g. Clicks
It uses a MediaTek Dimensity 8300 processor with 256GB of internal storage plus microSD expansion for add-on memory cards. It retains a 3.5mm headphone jack. Imaging is a 50MP rear camera paired with a 24MP front camera.
Keyboard localization includes English QWERTY plus French AZERTY, German QWERTZ, Korean and Arabic layouts.
Final certifications are scheduled for December. PA Media Clicks says the exact timing of a Communicator order depends on factors including certification approvals and availability. Clicks
The broader context here is why the RAM change matters most. On Android, 12GB leaves more headroom to keep background processes, large numbers of browser tabs, and on-device AI models in memory. It also reduces low-memory killer activity, the system shutting down background apps, which is often why small phones feel slower than their chips suggest.
The broader context for the battery is more modest. An extra 350mAh will not change screen-on time much, even at this display size with a 120Hz screen. The cycle rating carries more weight. More than 800 cycles points to multi-year service life with normal daily charging, which lines up with the five-year security patch commitment. For enterprise buyers, that pairing is what decides whether a niche device can stay in fleet.
For buyers weighing the October 1 deadline, the trade is price certainty against certification risk. The December shipment target follows final certifications in the same month, so approvals running long could cause slippage. That is normal for small-run hardware, and Clicks frames timing as dependent on those approvals. Ordering early locks in $499 but accepts that dependency.
In my view, the configuration reads as deliberate rather than retro. MicroSD storage, the headphone jack, the fingerprint-reading spacebar and touch-enabled keys keep wired workflows and one-handed input intact. The Dimensity 8300 plus 12GB should handle messaging-heavy use, VoIP calls, MDM management agents and VPN tunnels without strain. Camera tuning and modem performance in specific regions remain open questions, since sensor megapixels alone do not answer that.
Worth noting for tech-comfortable readers, the appeal comes down to input speed and pocketability against display area. A 4.03-inch panel limits split-screen work and dense code review. It favors triage, reply and capture. If your day involves long message threads, field notes, or terminal-adjacent work where tactile keys cut errors, that constraint works in your favor. If your day lives in spreadsheets and dashboards, it does not.
