CHARACTER ENTRY DEVICE AND CHARACTER ENTRY METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a character entry device that can easily enter characters for a portable electronic device such as a mobile phone and a portable information terminal. SOLUTION: A mobile phone main body 11 on its front side is provided with a display section 13, a function button 14 and a button entry section 15. The button entry section 15 is provided with a group of 15 (=3×5) sets of operation buttons such as ten-keys, and a contact sensor 16 subdivided into four areas is provided on each surface of each operation button. When the user traces an upper part of an operation button of the button entry section 15 by a finger, the contact sensor 16 senses the contact and provides an output to a character recognition processing section. The character recognition processing section provided in the mobile phone main body 11 is provided with a recognition dictionary used to recognize hand-written characters and recognizes hand-written characters on the basis of input information received from the contact sensor 16.