Text messaging cell phones have become increasingly popular, especially with teens and young adult consumers. These handsets usually sport a physical QWERTY keyboard for fast and easy composition of email and text messages. The latest models of text centric phones also offer access to popular social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Let's compare two of the top texting phones in the market, the LG Lotus Elite for Sprint and the Samsung Gravity 2 for T-Mobile and find the handset that is most suited for your text messaging, email and social networking needs.

Design/Form Factor

LG Lotus Elite: This Sprint cell phone features a unique square-shaped clamshell design with huge dual color displays, floral tattoo, rounded corners and shiny chrome detail along its borders. It's a fashion phone with text message-centric features including a physical QWERTY keyboard. The Lotus Elite 3.43 inches wide by 2.44 inches long by 0.75 inch thick and tips the scales at 4.8 oz.

Samsung Gravity 2: This device is thinner than the original Gravity but it retains the same overall design. This texting phone features an uncommon form factor that appears as a candy bar when viewed on the front and slides to the right to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard.  This T-Mobile cellphone measures 4.5 inches long by 2.1 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick and weighs 4.4 oz.

Display/Screen

The Lotus Elite's large dual display is one of its most popular features. The improved external display on this handset may also be its most attractive feature. It measures 2.4 inches diagonally and boasts 262,000 colors and a 320x240 pixel resolution. This external display is also a resistive touchscreen that allows users to tap through options. It displays useful indicators like battery, signal strength, plus the date and time. It can also be customized to provide quick access to the user's messages, photo gallery (or slide show), speed dial contacts, recent call history, and contacts list. The internal display on this handset measures 2.4-inches with the same color support and pixel resolution as the external screen.

The Gravity 2 sports a single 2.3 inch display with 262,000 colors with QVGA 240x320 pixel resolution. This screen looks bright, vibrant and shows off the colorful animated images on the phone.

Price

The Samsung Gravity 2 is a good option for users who want an affordable handset. T-Mobile is offering this texting phone for free with discounts and a 2-year contract.

The LG Lotus Elite is available at Sprint for $99.99 after rebates and a new 2-year contract.

Menu Interface

The Gravity 2 comes with a simple menu interface that can be adjusted to either a grid style or a circle style. The phone is equipped with a dedicated messaging key that can be mapped to one of five functions--a new message, a shortcut to the messaging in-box, a new audio postcard, the e-mail interface, or the instant-messaging menu.

The Lotus Elite comes with Sprint's OneClick UI that features a center carousel of shortcut tiles along the bottom row of the home screen. Users can easily add and remove shortcut tiles or quickly access phone functions like messages, account details, Sprint Navigation, Yahoo Mail, and more. This user-friendly menu interface also provides quick access to Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace accounts. It also includes a Google menu that gives you access to Google search, Gmail, and YouTube.

Camera/Camcorder

Samsung Gravity 2 2.0-megapixel camera:

• built-in camcorder records clips in 176x144 resolution
• take pictures in four resolutions (1,600x1,200, 1,280x960, 640x480, and 320x240)
• three quality settings, five white balance presets, and five color effects
• night mode, a self-timer, three shutter tones plus a silent mode
• three metering modes (Matrix, Center-weighted, and Spot) and 2.5x digital zoom
• five shot modes (Single, Continuous, Panorama, Smile shot, and Mosaic)

LG Lotus Elite 2.0-megapixel camera:

• located right on the hinge of the phone
• built-in camcorder records clips in three resolutions--QVGA (320x240), 176x144, or 128x96
• take pictures in four resolutions (1,600x1200, 1,280x960, 640x480, and 320x240)
• three quality settings, four color tones, five white balance presets plus a manual mode
• nine fun frames, brightness (auto and manual), and a 4x zoom (but only when not in the highest resolution)
• self-timer, a night mode, and four shutter sounds, and a silent option 

Music Player

Lotus Elite:

• simple music player with external controls
• supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, MP4A
• Users can create and edit playlists, transfer songs via USB and store additional tracks via a microSD card
• options include repeat, shuffle, and the capability to send the player to the background.

Gravity 2:

• basic music player that organizes tracks artists and albums
• supports MP3, AAC, and AAC+ file formats
• Users can create and edit playlists, customize the visualizations during music playback, add up to nine sound effects
• options include repeat, shuffle, and the capability to send the player to the background
• music can be loaded via a microSD card

Messaging/Email Options

Gravity 2:

• text and multimedia messages
• instant messages (from AIM, Yahoo, and Windows Live)
• audio postcards (which are framed photos with an audio attachment)
• users can create e-mail accounts from a variety of providers, like AOL, Yahoo, Comcast, and more

Lotus Elite:

• text and multimedia messaging
• instant messaging (AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo)
• e-mail from a variety of Web providers like AOL Mail, AIM Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail, plus other POP or IMAP servers
• work or corporate e-mail

Battery

The LG Lotus Elite is powered by a 1,000 mAh battery with rated capacity of up to 5.9 hours usage time and 16.2 days
standby time. The folks at CNET were able to obtain a tested talk time of 7 hours and 3 minutes.

The Samsung Gravity 2 is also powered by a 1,000 mAh battery with rated capacity of up to 5.5 hours usage time and 300 hours standby time. The folks at CNET were able to obtain a tested talk time of 5 hours and 55 minutes.

Conclusion

The LG Lotus Elite is one of the top texting phones on the market. It's popular stylish design, impressive external touch display, full QWERTY keypad, dedicated social networking keys and wide range of email/messaging options make it a formidable handset. However, its $99 price tag makes it an expensive handset when compared with other text-centric phones the market. The LG Elite features a stylish and unique design but it may not be for all users, since it was crafted to attract a fashion centric demographic.

The Samsung Gravity 2 may not be as sophisticated as the LG Lotus Elite, but it's affordable price tag makes it an attractive option. It's also a solid text messaging phone with a nice set of features including a QWERTY keyboard, 2 MP camera and a wide variety of email/messaging options.

Both of these handsets are good choices if one is looking for a reliable text messaging cell phone. The Gravity 2 might be a better choice if you're on a tight budget. On the other hand, the LG Lotus Elite is a good choice for consumers who are willing to pay a hundred bucks for an attention grabbing and highly capable messaging mobile phone.