Hands on: Kyocera Rise review

Kyocera Rises to the challenge of building cheap, ICS-equipped QWERTY phone

What is a hands on review?
Kyocera Rise
Ice Cream Sandwich meet your QWERTY companion

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Kyocera unveiled two new handsets at CTIA 2012, and both will appeal to niche audiences. We covered the water-resistant Kyocera Hydro, but if water resistance isn't exactly your thing, there's also the Kyocera Rise.

The Rise is a QWERTY keyboard phone with Ice Cream Sandwich. While those are obviously its main selling points, it has a long list of other features that will appeal to low to medium-level users.

Kyocera Rise

The 3.5-inch LCD display felt refreshingly quaint in our hands and kept the overall size of the chunky device somewhere between "chunky" and "decent."

Kyocera Rise

There's a rear-facing 3.2-megapixel camera which will suffice in need, but won't win you any "best of Instagram" awards.

Kyocera Rise

The keys are nicely spread and plenty responsive, but you'll definitely sacrifice a svelte frame for the added keyboard.

Kyocera Rise

Kyocera Rise release date

Kyocera Rise

The Kyocera Rise is set for a summer release, but little more is known - including which carriers it might appear on, various internal specs, and price.

Kyocera Rise

While we already know the Kyocera Rise isn't going to start any revolutions, we're always happy to welcome another QWERTY phone to the selective ranks.

Online Editor

Nic is a former Online Editor at TechRadar in San Francisco. He started as a games journalist before becoming an editor at Mac|Life magazine. He holds a degree in English Literature and English Writing from Whitworth University.

What is a hands on review?

Hands on reviews' are a journalist's first impressions of a piece of kit based on spending some time with it. It may be just a few moments, or a few hours. The important thing is we have been able to play with it ourselves and can give you some sense of what it's like to use, even if it's only an embryonic view. For more information, see TechRadar's Reviews Guarantee.