The Weird Phones at CES 2026 That Challenge the Rectangular Smartphone

Every January, thousands of tech enthusiasts, journalists, and engineers descend on Las Vegas for CES, hunting for the next big thing. Most of what you'll see on the main stage follows a predictable script: robots that can't quite fold a fitted sheet, AI features that nobody asked for, and the usual suspects from Samsung, LG, and the other household names showcasing incremental upgrades to last year's flagship.

But if you wander past the meatball sandwich stands and venture into the less-trafficked halls of the convention center, something interesting happens. You start finding phones that don't look like every other phone. You find devices that challenge the "black rectangle" paradigm that's dominated the smartphone industry for nearly two decades.

I've been covering tech long enough to know that the most innovative stuff at CES rarely happens center stage. It happens in the margins. It happens when smaller companies, ambitious startups, and forgotten hardware makers get a booth in the back corner and decide to show the world what they've been working on in some garage or overseas factory. That's where the real magic is, if you know where to look.

This year, I went looking for weird phones. And I found them. More importantly, I found myself genuinely excited about smartphone design for the first time in years. Not because every phone I saw was destined to be a bestseller, but because they represented something the industry has largely abandoned: genuine experimentation with form factor.

The smartphone has been stuck in amber since the original iPhone. Sure, we got folding screens. We got bigger bezels, smaller bezels, notches, punch holes, and under-display cameras. We got faster processors and better cameras. But the fundamental form factor—a flat, rectangular slab of glass and metal—has remained virtually unchanged. CES 2026 showed that there are still designers and engineers willing to ask "but what if it didn't have to be like that?"

Here's what I found lurking in the corners of the convention center.

The Clicks Communicator: A Phone That Wants to Be More Than a Phone

Clicks is a company you might know from its keyboard cases. The startup made waves a few years back by offering a clever MagSafe-compatible keyboard accessory that transformed your phone into something approximating a writing device. It was niche, but it resonated with a specific group of people: those who actually wanted physical keys instead of tapping glass all day.

Now Clicks has gone much further. They've built an actual phone called the Communicator, and it's dripping with BlackBerry nostalgia in the best possible way.

Let me be clear about something: the Communicator doesn't pretend to be your primary smartphone. It's positioned as a companion device. Imagine leaving your house with your regular flagship phone, but when you know you're going to be doing serious typing work—emails, long messages, actual writing—you grab the Communicator instead. It's a specialized tool for a specific job, and there's something refreshingly honest about that positioning.

The physical design leans heavily into BlackBerry's aesthetic. You've got a full keyboard running along the bottom of the device, arranged in the classic QWERTY layout. The keyboard actually works, and I mean that as real praise. Too many phone keyboards today are mushy, shallow, or otherwise disappointing. These keys have genuine travel and tactile feedback. They actually feel like typing on a keyboard, not pretending to type on a phone.

The screen is positioned above the keyboard, similar to how the old Curve phones worked. It's not a huge display—you're not watching movies on this thing—but it's perfect for the stated purpose: email, messaging, and document editing. The interchangeable back panels add a layer of personalization that's largely gone from modern phones. Clicks is planning colors ranging from the practical to the ridiculous, and I personally would commit crimes for an opaque fuzzy tennis ball optic yellow version.

What's genuinely fascinating about the Communicator is how it reframes the phone market. We've spent the last decade being told that phones are everything: your camera, your gaming device, your productivity machine, your entertainment center, your document editor, your communication hub. The Communicator arrives and says "no, the phone is just for communication. If you want to do something else, maybe grab the right tool for that job."

Clicks cofounder Jeff Gadway told me something that caught my attention during our conversation at the show. They initially expected the Communicator to appeal exclusively to a niche group of keyboard enthusiasts and productivity-obsessed professionals. But the early interest from people wanting to use it as their primary daily driver surprised them. Some people are so burned out on the all-in-one smartphone experience that they're willing to carry a dedicated device just to escape it.

Will the Communicator be a mainstream hit? Almost certainly not. But that's not the point. It exists because there's a market segment that's been ignored by Samsung, Apple, and Google. It exists because someone asked "what if we made the phone we actually wanted to use?" instead of "what if we added another AI feature?"

The Keyboard Experience: Why Physical Keys Still Matter

I need to spend a moment on this because it's such a stark contrast to how phones feel today. Every phone maker has essentially surrendered on physical keyboards. They've decided that glass touchscreens are inevitable, and anyone who wants different can deal with it.

But there's a reason BlackBerry held on to such a passionate user base for so long. Physical keys aren't just different; they're functionally superior for certain tasks. You can type on a BlackBerry without looking at the screen. You can touch-type. You can develop muscle memory. Try that on an iPhone.

The Communicator's keyboard isn't going to feel identical to a 2000s-era BlackBerry—it's more compact, and the industrial design is completely different. But it captures something essential about what made physical keyboards valuable in the first place.

Companion Device Philosophy: Rethinking Your Phone Ecosystem

The real innovation here might not be the hardware at all. It's the positioning. For twenty years, tech companies have been on a relentless quest to make one device do everything. The Communicator is a heretical device because it says "no, let's go back to specialized tools."

This challenges the entire smartphone industry philosophy. If you're comfortable carrying two devices, you can carry the perfect device for the job you're doing right now. You get a small, keyboard-equipped phone for writing and communication. You carry your main phone—maybe a foldable, maybe a camera flagship—for everything else. It's not more convenient in some abstract sense, but for people who value typing experience and focus, it's dramatically better.

The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold scored highest in innovation with its expandable screen, followed by the Clicks Communicator's physical keyboard and the compact design of the Ikko MindOne Pro. Estimated data based on feature uniqueness.

The Ikko Mind One Pro: Proof That Square Phones Can Work

I almost missed the Mind One Pro entirely. Ikko's booth occupied a remote corner of Central Hall, positioned past a concession stand selling questionable meatball sandwiches that I can only assume were made sometime last year. The space was compact, the signage was modest, and there was zero attempt at flashy marketing. It was exactly the kind of booth you walk past without thinking twice.

But I stopped. And I'm glad I did, because the Mind One Pro might be the most interesting Android phone I've held in months.

Here's the immediate observation: it's small. We're talking a 4-inch display, which sounds like a museum piece in 2026. The iPhone has been getting bigger every year, foldables are competing for tablet territory, and Google's Pixel line keeps pushing larger. A 4-inch Android phone feels like a relic.

Except it doesn't. It feels revolutionary.

The form factor is square, which immediately sets it apart from the endless parade of rectangular phones. There's something about that square shape—it's compact, it's pocketable, it doesn't feel like a brick in your hand. After spending the past few weeks with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, a device that weighs roughly as much as a small paperback book, the Mind One Pro felt impossibly light.

Ikko started as an earbud company, which makes them an unusual entrant into the smartphone space. Their track record in mobile is nonexistent, which raises legitimate questions about software support and long-term viability. But they're trying to address these concerns by bundling two operating systems with the phone.

The primary OS is Android, which you know and understand. But Ikko also includes their proprietary OS, which is built around AI applications. Here's the clever part: the AI features that run on their proprietary OS come with free global data, which means you can use them without relying on your cellular connection or home network. If you're traveling internationally or in an area with poor coverage, these AI tools keep working.

If you're not interested in their proprietary OS, you can preorder the phone with Android exclusively. Ikko's being transparent about this in their Kickstarter campaign, which honestly deserves credit. They're not trying to force their OS on anyone; they're offering it as an option.

The rear camera is 50 megapixels and includes a rotating mechanism. Pull it out, and it acts as a selfie camera. Rotate it back up, and it serves as a kickstand for propping the phone on a table. It's a small thing, but it shows design thinking. Someone looked at this compact form factor and asked "how do we make this actually functional?" instead of just copying what everyone else is doing.

The square design also has practical benefits for a compact phone. It maximizes screen real estate relative to overall device size, which standard rectangular shapes waste. The bezels can be more evenly distributed, which looks cleaner and feels better in hand. It's a design choice that's been largely abandoned by the industry, which makes it feel fresh.

The Compact Phone Market: Why Small Still Matters

There's been a persistent myth in the smartphone industry for the past five years: nobody wants small phones. The data allegedly shows that people want larger screens and bigger batteries. So every flagship has gotten bigger.

But there's a vocal contingent of users who actively resists this trend. They want phones that fit in pockets. They don't want devices that require two hands to operate. They liked the iPhone SE. They mourn the death of compact flagships.

The Mind One Pro directly targets this market. It's a full-featured Android phone that doesn't compromise on processing power or camera quality. It's just small. That's the entire value proposition, and for the people who want it, it's enormously valuable.

Proprietary OS and AI Integration: A Risky But Interesting Bet

The inclusion of Ikko's proprietary OS is the wildcard here. Most users will probably just use Android. It's what they know, it has the app ecosystem they depend on, and it works. But the fact that Ikko is including a second OS shows they're thinking about what their device can uniquely offer.

The free global data for AI features is genuinely clever. AI applications are computationally expensive and data-hungry. Giving users access to these features without consuming their cellular data or relying on their home network connection addresses a real friction point. If the AI features are actually useful—if they do things that regular Android apps don't do well—this could be a genuine differentiator.

The risk is obvious: building and maintaining two separate operating systems for a small startup is incredibly expensive. The long-term viability depends on whether Ikko can actually execute on this vision. But that's part of what makes it interesting. They're taking a genuine risk instead of copying what Apple and Samsung do.

The Ikko MindOne Pro stands out with its compact 4-inch display, contrasting with the larger screens of contemporary smartphones. Estimated data.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Tri Fold: Ambition Unfolding

The Galaxy Z Tri Fold wasn't even on the main CES floor. Samsung kept it in a private suite, which created this interesting effect where the device loomed over the entire show. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone wanted to see it. The hype machine was working beautifully.

I got to spend time with the device, and here's my honest assessment: it's a rectangular glass slab. Samsung isn't hiding this. It's a larger rectangular glass slab that folds into an even larger rectangular glass slab.

But my cynicism doesn't really capture what's happening here. When you unfold the Tri Fold to its full 10-inch display, something shifts. You're holding a device that's basically a tablet, but it closes down to something you can carry in your pocket. That's genuinely remarkable from an engineering perspective.

I spent most of my hands-on time with it unfolded, running through various use cases. Samsung's DeX mode—their desktop-like interface for tablets—comes alive on a 10-inch screen. You can arrange windows side by side. You can display three vertical video feeds simultaneously. You can rotate the entire interface and scroll through a website in landscape mode, treating the device like a portable monitor.

Here's what surprised me: I could actually see myself using this instead of carrying a laptop. I'm not a tablet person generally. I don't feel the need for an intermediate device between phone and laptop. But the Tri Fold offers something different. It's the phone I already have, but when I open it, it becomes a productive tool that can genuinely replace a laptop for certain tasks.

The engineering is wild. Getting a display to fold multiple times without visible creases requires solving problems that didn't exist a few years ago. Samsung has spent years perfecting the original Galaxy Z Fold, learning from failures and iterating on the design. The Tri Fold is the logical conclusion of that effort.

Form Factor Evolution: From Phone to Tablet in a Fold

The Tri Fold represents a fundamental shift in how we think about portable devices. You're not carrying a phone and a tablet anymore. You're carrying a single device that transforms between form factors based on your immediate needs.

This is ambitious in a way that most phones aren't anymore. Samsung is saying "the future is going to look different, and we're going to lead that transformation." Whether they succeed is another question, but the ambition is refreshing.

DeX and Productivity: Can a Foldable Replace Your Laptop?

DeX has always been Samsung's answer to iPad multitasking. But on a 10-inch screen, it actually becomes usable. The window management works. The app ecosystem is sufficient for most productivity tasks. You can get real work done.

For specific workflows—writing, email, content consumption, spreadsheet work—the Tri Fold could legitimately replace a laptop. You lose the keyboard experience you'd get with the Communicator, but you gain a device that's actually portable.

Beyond the Headliners: Other Interesting Phone Developments

CES 2026 had more weird phones than just these three. The show floor revealed a ecosystem of experimentation, and while not every device is going to ship or find an audience, the variety is encouraging.

There were phones with different color-changing technologies. Transparent phones that manufacturers keep promising but rarely deliver on. Devices with rotating cameras, periscope zoom arrays that looked like something from science fiction, and some truly bizarre integration attempts with AI assistants.

One device featured a modular system where you could physically swap camera modules to change the phone's capabilities. Another experimented with e-ink displays as secondary screens, which could theoretically give you a digital note-taking surface on the back of the phone.

None of these will necessarily become mainstream. But their existence is important. They represent designers and engineers asking questions that Apple, Samsung, and Google have largely stopped asking. They represent companies willing to take risks instead of iterating on the same formula year after year.

The Trend Toward Niche Specialization

What connects all these weird phones is a willingness to specialize. The Communicator is for people who want to type. The Mind One Pro is for people who want small. The Tri Fold is for people who want maximum screen real estate in a pocketable form factor.

Instead of every phone trying to be everything for everyone, we're starting to see a return to specialized tools. This is actually how phones worked in the early days of smartphones. The BlackBerry was for business users. The iPhone was for people who wanted a touch-first experience. The Android ecosystem was for people who wanted customization.

The industry moved toward uniformity because it's profitable and efficient. But it's also boring. These weird phones suggest that the pendulum is starting to swing back.

The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold excels in innovation and portability, offering a unique blend of phone and tablet functionalities. Estimated data based on feature analysis.

The Design Philosophy Behind Weird Phones

What separates these phones from the usual flagships isn't just their appearance. It's the philosophy behind them.

When Apple designs an iPhone, they're optimizing for the broadest possible audience. The device needs to work for teenagers, business executives, content creators, photographers, and casual users. It needs to be fast enough for demanding tasks but not so complicated that grandmothers can't use it. It needs beautiful industrial design and a premium feel. It needs to last years in terms of software support.

That's an incredibly constraining problem to solve. It forces convergence toward a middle ground. Everyone gets a great, general-purpose phone that's good at everything but not specifically optimized for anything.

Weird phones flip this script. They're designed for specific user groups with specific needs. They're willing to make tradeoffs that would be unacceptable in a flagship but that the target user actively values.

The Communicator sacrifices screen size and battery life to give you the best typing experience on a mobile device. That's a terrible tradeoff for most people. It's a perfect tradeoff for someone who writes a lot.

The Mind One Pro sacrifices screen size and app ecosystem strength to give you maximum pocketability. Again, terrible for some people, excellent for others.

This kind of specialization requires either incredible confidence in a niche market or the freedom to fail without destroying your company. Most established phone makers can't afford that risk. Samsung could theoretically do this, but the corporate structure probably makes it impossible to allocate resources to a specialized device that might only sell a few million units.

Smaller companies with less to lose can take these bets.

The Hardware Keyboard Renaissance: Why Physical Keys Matter More Than Ever

I want to return to something I touched on earlier because it's genuinely important. The Communicator's keyboard isn't just a nostalgic nod to BlackBerry. It's a statement about what phones are missing.

We collectively decided sometime around 2007 that touchscreens were the future. And in many ways, they were right. For most use cases, a touchscreen is superior to a physical keyboard. Typing URLs, entering passwords, search queries—all of these are better on a touchscreen than they ever were on a physical keypad.

But there's a specific use case where touchscreens fundamentally fail: writing. Typing actual prose, whether it's emails, messages, blog posts, or documents, is dramatically better on a physical keyboard. You can develop muscle memory. You can type without looking at the screen. You can achieve speeds comparable to a regular keyboard.

Touchscreen keyboards have gotten better. The autocorrect is smarter. The haptic feedback is more convincing. But they're still fundamentally worse for serious typing than a real keyboard.

Apple experimented with this by making iPad keyboards more capable. But they never went back to what BlackBerry discovered: a physical keyboard on a phone is actually valuable for a specific subset of users.

The Communicator is bringing this back. And judging by the interest at CES, people have missed it.

Niche phones like the Communicator and TriFold sell fewer units but command higher prices, highlighting their focus on specialized markets. Estimated data.

The Role of Form Factor Innovation in Phone Design

We've been in a period of industrial design stagnation for smartphones. Every flagship follows the same basic formula: thin, flat, premium materials, minimal bezels, edge-to-edge display. The differences between a Samsung, Apple, or Google flagship phone are usually just details. The overall form factor is virtually identical.

This wasn't always the case. In the pre-smartphone era, phones came in wildly different form factors. Flip phones, slide phones, phones with physical buttons everywhere, phones with unique sizes and proportions. You could look at a phone and know what it was just from shape alone.

The industry consolidated around the candy-bar form factor because it's efficient and it works well enough for most users. But "good enough" isn't the same as "optimal."

These weird phones are asking if we've optimized too hard around one specific form factor. Maybe the rectangular slab isn't actually the best design for all smartphones. Maybe different users are better served by different shapes.

The market has essentially rejected this idea for the past decade. But that rejection might be starting to crack. Foldables proved that there's demand for different form factors, even when they came with higher prices and potential reliability issues. That opened a door. These weird phones are walking through it.

The Economics of Niche Phones: Why They Matter More Than Market Share

Let's be realistic: the Communicator won't outsell the iPhone. The Mind One Pro won't become the best-selling Android phone. The Tri Fold will be a luxury item for enthusiasts.

But that's not the right metric for success in the weird phone space. Success for these devices is different. Success is finding their specific audience and satisfying them deeply. Success is proving that there's a market for specialization. Success is inspiring the big manufacturers to ask "what if we explored other form factors too?"

Clicks doesn't need to sell fifty million Communicators. They need to sell enough to establish the device as a legitimate product category and maintain support for it. If they can do that with a million units per year, they've created a sustainable business that's genuinely serving an underserved market.

The economics of a niche phone are also different. They can command premium pricing because they're solving a specific problem that users will pay for. The Communicator probably costs more than a regular Android phone, but for someone who types a lot, it's worth it. That premium pricing allows smaller companies to invest in the engineering and design without needing massive volume.

Samsung can't do this. They have to sell phones in volume to justify the research and development. But Clicks can. Ikko can. These smaller companies have a huge advantage in experimenting with weird form factors because their cost structure is more favorable.

Estimated data suggests that while rectangular flagships will continue to dominate, foldables and compact phones will gain significant market share by 2031.

What This Means for the Future of Smartphones

If I had to predict what the smartphone market looks like in five years based on what I saw at CES 2026, I'd guess we're moving toward a more diverse ecosystem. The mainstream will probably still be dominated by rectangular flagships from Apple and Samsung. But around the edges, you'll see more specialization.

We'll probably see more phones with physical keyboards, especially if the Communicator succeeds. Companies will experiment with different screen sizes and aspect ratios. Form factors will diversify.

Foldables will become more mainstream and more affordable. The engineering will improve. Display durability will increase. Prices will drop. In five years, a foldable phone probably won't be a luxury item anymore.

Compact phones will make a comeback. The demand for them has always been there, but it was ignored because phones were getting bigger. As compact phone makers prove that's there's an audience, larger manufacturers will probably enter the space.

AI integration will continue, but hopefully the industry will start asking smarter questions about what AI features are actually useful versus what's just novelty. The Mind One Pro's approach—using AI features that don't require high-bandwidth internet—is probably a template for how AI should be integrated into niche phones.

What you probably won't see is everyone abandoning the rectangular slab. That design is too effective, too familiar, too profitable. But you will see it stop being the only option.

The Case for Phone Experimentation

Here's why this matters beyond just having cooler-looking phones. Smartphones have become so central to how we live that the design of the smartphone shape affects how we actually live. A smaller phone encourages different usage patterns than a 6.7-inch flagship. A phone with a physical keyboard naturally leads to more serious writing and communication. A foldable that becomes a tablet changes how you think about portability and productivity.

When the entire industry converges on one form factor, everyone gets the same affordances and limitations. Innovation stalls because there's no pressure to do anything different.

Weird phones create pressure. They prove that alternatives are possible. They inspire engineers at big companies to ask "what if?" instead of just refining what's already been done.

They also serve people who have been ignored by the mainstream market. For someone who genuinely values typing speed and key feedback, the Communicator is the first phone in years that actually addresses their needs. For someone who wants a genuinely small phone, the Mind One Pro is a revelation.

This is how innovation actually works. You start with weirdos and enthusiasts willing to try something different. If it works, if it solves a real problem, it gradually gets adopted. Sometimes it becomes mainstream. Sometimes it stays niche. Either way, the existence of the option matters.

Weird phones optimize specific features like typing experience and pocketability, while flagship phones aim for balanced performance across all aspects. Estimated data.

What I'll Be Watching

I'm keeping close tabs on several things. First, whether Clicks can actually ship the Communicator and whether it reaches anything approaching broad adoption. If they can prove the market exists, other manufacturers will follow.

Second, how the Mind One Pro performs in actual shipping and whether Ikko can provide the software support that users expect. This is the biggest question mark. Excellent hardware means nothing without good software support.

Third, how the Tri Fold actually performs in the market. Samsung is betting big on foldables, and the Tri Fold represents the logical endpoint of their vision. If it's a hit, expect the industry to follow. If it flops, foldables might go back to being a curiosity.

Finally, I'm watching to see if the weirdness spreads. Were these phones interesting one-offs, or was CES 2026 the moment when the smartphone market started to genuinely diversify?

FAQ

What was unique about the weird phones at CES 2026?

The weird phones at CES 2026 departed from the standard rectangular smartphone design that has dominated for nearly two decades. They included the Clicks Communicator with a full physical keyboard, the Ikko Mind One Pro with a compact square form factor and 4-inch display, and Samsung's Galaxy Z Tri Fold that expands to a 10-inch screen. These devices represented genuine experimentation with form factor rather than incremental upgrades to existing designs.

Why are physical keyboards making a comeback on phones?

Physical keyboards offer substantial advantages for typing-centric use cases that touchscreens simply cannot match. Users can develop muscle memory, type without looking at the screen, and achieve speeds comparable to traditional keyboards. While touchscreens excel at general interaction, they fundamentally underperform for serious written communication, which explains why devices like the Communicator are finding an audience among users who type frequently.

What are the benefits of compact phones like the Mind One Pro?

Compact phones maximize portability and one-handed usability while maintaining modern hardware capabilities. The Mind One Pro's 4-inch display and square form factor reduce pocket wear, lower device weight, and make the phone genuinely pocketable without requiring special clothing. This addresses a market segment largely ignored by mainstream manufacturers who have consistently made phones larger year after year.

How does the Galaxy Z Tri Fold change smartphone functionality?

The Tri Fold transforms a standard phone into a tablet-sized device with a 10-inch display when unfolded. This enables genuine multitasking with side-by-side applications, replaces the need for a separate tablet or laptop for certain productivity tasks, and allows for desktop-like interface management through Samsung's DeX mode. The device fundamentally changes how users can approach portable computing.

Why do larger phone makers struggle with niche smartphones?

Larger manufacturers like Apple and Samsung need to sell devices in massive volume to justify research and development costs. This creates pressure to design phones that appeal to the broadest possible audience rather than optimizing for specific user needs. Smaller companies like Clicks and Ikko have lower cost structures that allow them to focus on specialized markets without requiring millions of units in annual sales.

What does the existence of weird phones mean for phone innovation?

Weird phones signal that the smartphone market may be transitioning from uniform convergence back to more diverse specialization. They prove that alternatives to the standard rectangular design are technically feasible and market-viable. When niche manufacturers succeed with specialized phones, larger companies face pressure to explore form factors they previously dismissed, ultimately expanding the range of options available to all users.

Will foldable phones become mainstream?

Foldable technology has already demonstrated significant market viability, with Samsung selling millions of units annually. As manufacturing improves, costs decrease, and reliability increases, foldables will likely become less exotic and more accessible. The Tri Fold and similar devices suggest that foldables are transitioning from luxury novelty items to mainstream product categories within the next five years.

What role does AI play in these new phone designs?

AI integration varies by device. The Mind One Pro includes proprietary AI features bundled with free global data, allowing AI tools to function without relying on cellular or WiFi connections. This approach acknowledges that not all users have consistent internet access and creates meaningful differentiation from standard Android phones. AI features serve as a tool for specialization rather than a primary selling point.

Could the Communicator keyboard approach work on mainstream phones?

While mainstream phones are unlikely to add physical keyboards, the Communicator's existence raises important questions about whether the industry has optimized too heavily around touchscreen-only input. Some users would genuinely prefer a device that sacrifices screen size or battery life for keyboard capabilities. If the Communicator succeeds commercially, it might inspire alternative input options even on larger phones, such as mechanical keyboard cases or hybrid input systems.

What should consumers expect from weird phones in terms of software support and longevity?

Software support represents the biggest risk with niche phones from smaller manufacturers. The Communicator and Mind One Pro depend on sustained developer commitment and resources to receive regular updates and security patches. Consumers considering these devices should research company track records, check for commitments to minimum update periods, and factor ongoing support into their purchasing decisions. This is a genuine concern that separates experimental phones from established flagships.

The Takeaway

CES 2026 showed me something I didn't expect to find: hope. Hope that the smartphone doesn't have to look the same way it has for the past fifteen years. Hope that there's still room for creativity and experimentation in phone design. Hope that manufacturers are willing to take risks on specialized devices for underserved markets.

Yes, the weirdness is marginal right now. These phones are niche products that most people will never buy or even see. But that's how innovation always starts. Someone takes a weird idea seriously. If it works, it gradually becomes less weird. Sometimes it becomes mainstream.

The rectangular smartphone won't disappear. Apple and Samsung will keep making them. The market will continue to reward efficiency and practicality. But maybe, just maybe, there's finally room for something different again.

That's worth celebrating.

Key Takeaways

• CES 2026 showcased multiple smartphones that challenge the fifteen-year dominance of rectangular glass slab designs
• The Clicks Communicator brings back physical keyboards for users who value typing experience over screen size
• The Ikko MindOne Pro proves there's market demand for genuinely compact phones with full Android capabilities
• Samsung's Galaxy Z TriFold represents ambition to transform phones into portable tablets through advanced folding engineering
• Smaller manufacturers can succeed with specialized phones while larger companies struggle with niche markets due to volume requirements
• The existence of experimental phones creates pressure on mainstream manufacturers to explore alternative form factors
• Physical keyboards offer genuine functional advantages for writing that touchscreens cannot replicate, explaining their comeback appeal

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