Lovers of physical keyboards, BlackBerry hasn’t forgotten about you.

The Canadian company’s Q10 smartphone, the second phone running the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, began rolling out to U.S. carriers this week.

Featuring BlackBerry’s much-loved keyboard, this is the smartphone for which many users were holding out. And struggling BlackBerry, in the midst of playing catch-up to the iPhone and Android devices, needs the phone to perform and sell well.

Physical keyboard phones are becoming more rare as touch-screen-only mobile devices take over. But BlackBerry, which built its reputation as an enterprise workhorse, has promised to remain faithful to professionals and others who prefer the speed, accuracy and tactile appeal of pushing buttons.

“We’re convinced there is a significant segment of the market who prefers to have a physical keyboard,” BlackBerry chief marketing officer Frank Boulben said Wednesday in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in Beverly Hills, Calif. “We want to continue to serve that segment.”

The Times received a Q10 this week, and I’ve had a few days to play around with the device. My initial impression is that BlackBerry has built an impressive smartphone that keyboard loyalists will love. The challenge for BlackBerry will be persuading other users to give it a chance.

Unlike the sleek touch-screen-only Z10, released in March, the Q10 boasts the familiar look and feel of a traditional BlackBerry. In a nod to the popularity of touch screens, the Q10 is actually a hybrid that combines a physical keyboard with a 3.1-inch touch screen.

What I first noticed out of the box was the Q10’s display size. BlackBerry added real estate to the touch screen by getting rid of the large buttons above the keyboard.

That means no more home or call buttons, making the user experience much less intuitive — and it means you’ll have to use the touch screen all the time, if you like it or not.