There's a quiet irony in the fact that the very people who once abandoned physical keyboards for glass screens now find themselves nostalgic for the satisfying click of a real key. The Clicks Power Keyboard leans into that nostalgia, promising a customizable, slide-out typing experience for MagSafe and Qi2 smartphones. At $99, it's not an outrageous ask for a niche accessory, but the trade-off is immediate and physical: it adds heft to your phone. And for anyone using a larger device, that extra bulk isn't a minor quibble, it's the whole story.
We're not going to pretend that the modern smartphone keyboard is beyond reproach. Autocorrect has a way of making you feel like you're arguing with a well-meaning but deeply confused intern. So we understand the appeal of reclaiming precision, of feeling keys under your thumb that actually depress. The Clicks keyboard delivers on that front, and the fact that it's customizable means you can tailor it to your own habits, not the other way around. But here's the practical question we'd ask any reader: are you willing to make your phone thicker, heavier, and just a little more awkward to hold for the sake of typing accuracy? On a smaller phone, that's a fair trade. On a Pro Max or an Ultra, you're not adding a keyboard, you're adding a burden.
This isn't about dismissing the idea outright. It's about being honest about what you're giving up. The Clicks keyboard is a solution to a problem that many of us have simply learned to live with, and for some, the muscle memory of touchscreens has become too strong to justify the extra weight. Yet we also see a specific audience here: the person who writes long emails on their phone, the journalist who still prefers tactile feedback, the user who misses their BlackBerry but doesn't miss the old operating system. For them, this could be a meaningful upgrade. But the phrase "with some compromises" in the headline is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It's not just about size, it's about the daily reality of carrying a device that now feels less like a phone and more like a small laptop attachment you can't easily remove.
So if a reader came to us and asked, "Should I buy this?" we'd answer with a question of our own: what's your baseline? If you're already frustrated with your current typing experience and you're using a smaller phone, this is a reasonable experiment. If you're on a large device and you're hoping this will suddenly make your phone feel more portable, it won't. The Clicks keyboard doesn't solve that problem, it adds to it. What we'd watch for is how the accessory market responds. If this gains traction, we could see more case makers and accessory brands experimenting with slide-out mechanisms, which would be a welcome shift toward functionality over thinness. But for now, the honest take is this: the Clicks keyboard is a great idea for the right person, and a heavy burden for everyone else. The detail to watch is whether future versions can shave off that bulk, because if they can't, the nostalgia will wear off long before the battery does.