- CES 2026 has wrapped in Las Vegas, with The Verge’s live roundup updated Jan. 13 highlighting a wave of “weird hardware” alongside more conventional launches. (The Verge)
- On the phone side, Clicks showed a BlackBerry-inspired Communicator prototype with a full keyboard, while Ikko demoed a 4-inch square Android phone with a rotating 50MP camera. (The Verge)
- Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold unfolded to a 10-inch display with DeX multitasking, and Honor’s “Robot Phone” prototype was shown with a gimbal camera that didn’t move in a Verge demo unit. (The Verge)
CES 2026 is over, and the most interesting phone hardware coming out of Las Vegas wasn’t a standard glass slab. The show’s closing roundup points to a small but telling push toward devices that are trying—hard—to look and feel different. (The Verge)
That matters right now because the modern smartphone has basically converged on one design, and most upgrades land as refinements. CES is one of the last big stages where companies can still put a strange idea in your hand and see if it earns a second look.
The Verge staff’s CES live tracker, updated Tuesday, Jan. 13, framed this year’s event as a parade of experiments: Lego’s first “electronics-packed smart brick,” a two-legged robovac designed to climb and clean stairs, an expanding-screen laptop, and even a solid-state battery pitched as an EV game-changer. (The Verge)
Phones didn’t dominate the show floor, but Allison Johnson’s CES wander found a handful that felt like a quiet protest against the default rectangle. She described “glimmers of hope” that phone design might not stay so same-y, if you’re willing to look past the main attractions. (The Verge)
Clicks, known for making keyboard cases, used CES to show something more ambitious: a prototype handset called the Communicator. It leans into BlackBerry DNA with a full keyboard and a Curve-esque shape, and Johnson noted the demo units weren’t functional—though the keys did work, and the back panels can be swapped. (The Verge)
Clicks isn’t positioning the Communicator as a flagship-killer, either. The company sees it as a companion device for moments when typing an email matters more than scrolling, but Clicks cofounder and marketing lead Jeff Gadway told The Verge the team has been surprised by how many people want it as a primary phone. (The Verge)
Ikko’s MindOne Pro takes the opposite approach: small, square, and a little bit odd. Johnson describes it as a full-featured Android phone with a 4-inch screen and a 50-megapixel rear camera that rotates upward for selfies, with the camera module also acting as a kickstand. (The Verge)
The MindOne Pro also leans into the CES-era AI pitch. Johnson reports it ships with a second proprietary operating system centered on AI apps, and those AI features come with free global data; Ikko’s Kickstarter page also notes buyers can have it shipped without the Ikko OS, sticking with Android. (The Verge)
Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold was the “go big” entry in this mix. Johnson says it folds out to a 10-inch display, and she spent most of her demo time using it unfolded—rearranging windows in DeX (Samsung’s desktop-style multitasking mode) and even running three vertical video feeds side by side. (The Verge)
Honor’s “Robot Phone” fits CES’s love of spectacle, but the prototype story also shows the limits of show-floor demos. Stevie Bonifield notes that Dominic Preston saw a static prototype where the phone’s “fancy camera didn’t move,” despite the earlier announcement highlighting a gimbal camera that’s described as “apparently intelligent.” (The Verge)
There’s a real risk hiding under the novelty, though: a lot of this is still half-formed. Clicks’ units weren’t functional, Honor’s camera didn’t budge in the Verge demo, and Johnson flags the bigger long-term question around smaller brands like Ikko—software updates and how well they handle personal data tend to matter more than clever industrial design once you’ve lived with a phone for a few months. (The Verge)
Still, CES 2026 didn’t just churn out another year of rectangles. The show’s final tracker is now in wrap-up mode—pointing to gadgets expected to roll out across 2026—and the phone corner of that story is clear enough: keyboards, square screens, and folding mini-tablets are back in the conversation, even if they’re starting as prototypes in the margins. (The Verge)
