This is the era of smartphones and manufacturers of these phones are vying with each other for market presence. Not all phones are manufactured alike; while in some the camera may be the most prominent feature, another may have features for streaming TV and music, while yet another would have excellent text messaging capabilities. Nevertheless two things that are common to all mobile phones are the call dialling and receiving and the text and voice messaging features. If you are one who spends a lot of time messaging people or for that matter if your job involves a great amount of sending and receiving text messages, it would be best to select a phone that has good messaging options so that the activity is made easier as well as quicker too.

Due to the small size of the mobile phone the keypads are also rather small with buttons beg placed so close that it is rather tough to type in the messages. Given below are some suggestions in selecting the most ideal text messaging mobile phone.

1. Look for a mobile phone with a QWERTY keypad, because this kind of keypad has the buttons placed in the same order as on the keyboard of your PC. This aids faster typing. Particularly if you happen to know typing.
2. Another factor to consider is the Menu. For those who need to send and receive text message scrolling through messages should be easy and this is aided by a good and easy to use menu.
3. A bigger and spacious keypad is a must so that you do not accidentally press the adjacent button of a certain letter during typing. One of the best mobile phones that would be ideal for text messaging is the touch screen mobile phones and many of them offer feedbacks thereby making the utilization of the virtual keyboard far simpler.
4. The size of the screen is also a fairly important factor, though it would also depend on each one's preferences. The lighting on the screen for both indoor and outdoor use is important. In some of the mobile phones the screens tilt and in some others you have the facility to adjust the fonts and the brightness.
5. For those people using SMS extensively predictive text can be a great help when sending messages. This feature will aid in reducing the number of strokes on the keyboard when you are creating a message.
6. Threaded messages is another feature that allow you to keep tab of the conversations that you have been having and helps you save precious time.

How to select the correct scheme for text messaging
If text messaging is one of the main intentions that you are getting yourself a phone then you have to ensure that you subscribe for the proper scheme too because it is vital that you can remain within a certain budget. There are also unlimited text messaging plans that is ideal for people who send and receive plenty of messages every month. The crux of the matter is no matter what plan you subscribe for, ensure that you take a plan that will have the requisite limits because over shooting that limit could prove to be an expensive affair for you. There are plans that offer Text Only Plans if you do not require voice calling facilities at all.

Some of the mobile phones that would be ideal for text messaging like BlackBerry Torch, the Bold Touch 9930, LG Cosmos, LG Rumour Touch, the Motorola Droid 3 and the Samsung Epic 4G. Now let's have a look at each one with their features separately.

The BlackBerry Torch
This is believed to be one of the top mobile phones for text messaging. Fitted with a 3.2 inch high resolution touchscreen, an optical track-pad and a slide down QWERTY keyboard, this phone is supported by the 3G network offered by AT&T. It boasts of internal memory of 4GB and a microSD card slot for additional memory. It is powered by the BlackBerry 6 OS. It also features GPS and a 5MP camera. You also have access to the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), Facebook, Twitter and Myspace and offers full-page view of websites, multitask with tabbed browsing and Universal Search. The BlackBerry Torch also has facilities for advanced messaging, push email technology, treaded messaging and group messaging with "reply all" functions that comes in particularly useful when you have to schedule group get together.

The BlackBerry Bold Touch 9930
This is another of the BlackBerry series mobile phones that features a roomy QWERTY keyboard with a 2.8inch touchscreen display, combined with 3G connectivity. It also comes fitted with a 5MP camera and Bluetooth Stereo music. The mobile phone is supported by an HTML 5 web browser and has 4GB of memory.

LG Cosmos
One other mobile phone that is said to be excellent for sending text messages is LG's Cosmos. The handset has a 2inch display screen with a full-slide QWERTY keyboard. The owner can store up to ten names via shortcut key to their 'Favourite' so that it is easy to message friends. It also has features like E-mail/ mobile web mail, instant messaging, mobile web browsing as well as multimedia messaging along with SMS functions.

LG Rumour Touch
Just like all other text messaging phones this too has a full-slide out QWERTY keyboard and a rather big 3inch extension touchscreen display. It works on the 3G mobile network offered by Sprint such that it can stream Sprint TV, video, music etc. It is also supported by E-mail facilities, along with instant messaging options, mobile web browsing, multimedia as well as SMS messaging. Other than this it also features Bluetooth stereo for hands-free communication.

It comes loaded with a battery, charger, 1GB MicroSD card and adapter and also has a 'Getting Started and Feature Guide and Manual.

Motorola Droid 3
The Motorola Droid 3, a GSM phone, is said to be one of the best among the mobile phones for text messaging business. There are many security features in this phone like SD card encryption and a complicated password support to remote data wipe services. It is run on the Android 2.3 operating system and is powered by a fiery 1GHz dual-core processor.

It boasts of a 4inch HD multi-touchscreen and also has a 5 row full-slide out QWERTY keyboard. The phone can also work like a 3G hotspot for up to five other devices. It comes loaded with features like Skype Mobile compatibility, an 8MP camera, Bluetooth Stereo music and a 16GB internal memory with a slot for expansion if needed. The great thing about this phone is that it offers almost 8 hours of talk time with a single charging.

Samsung Epic 4G
This mobile phone operates from Sprint's 3G or 4G network and features a 4inch AMOLED touchscreen display combined with a virtual QWERTY keyboard. This handset has the SWYPE technology including a side sliding roomy physical QWERTY keyboard that facilitates quicker input. It runs on the Android 2.1 OS and is supported by a full-time THML web browser, with functions that can access the Google Mobile services. It also boasts of a forward facing VGA camera and in addition has a 5MP auto focus camera that has HD video recording capabilities too.