The Starfleet communictor of the 2150's was designed to be as compact as possible, while still having a maximim range possible. Two read outs on the display shown the battery life, and signal strength. Communications range was not much better than a close orbit around the planet, making further communications impossible. The communicator was activated by a push button release on the side, which flipped up the antenna / protective cover, to access the control surface. There was no universal translator circuit built in, instead the UT was a device that was attached to the bottom of the communicator.