Kyocera Rise hands-on: Let those fingers fly

NEW ORLEANS--For those whose hearts go aflutter and fingers go a-flying for QWERTY keyboards, Kyocera's newest Android Ice Cream Sandwich handset (yes, you read that right -- it has ICS), the Kyocera Rise, may be up your alley.

The phone manufacturer announced the handset at CTIA 2012. Along with the slide-out keyboard, it also sports a 3.5-inch LCD touch-screen display and a 1GHz Snapdragon processor.

In the rear is a 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash. The 3G handset is also equipped with the Swype virtual keyboard and Bluetooth 2.1.

"We did a lot of consumer and secondary research in the market," said John Chier, Kyocera's director of corporate communications.

Chier told CNET that the research showed a large and "rather intense" demand for hard keys.

"There are so many touch-only devices out there in the market," he said. "We saw a need for a QWERTY device."

During my brief time with the Kyocera Rise, the keys felt solid and were reasonably spaced out from one another. Although the 3.5mm headphone jack looked bulgey from the back, I liked the slightly convex edges of the device and the simplistic look of the keyboard.

There's no word yet from Kyocera about the Rise's price of carrier information. It is, however, planned for a summer release.

In addition to this handset, the company also announced the water-resilient Kyocera Hydro.

Catch all the latest news from CTIA 2012.