LG's after the messaging market in a big way with the new DoublePlay on T-Mobile — it's got a 3.5-inch main display plus a 2-inch display in the middle of a split QWERTY keyboard on the slider. The phone, which leaked on T-Mobile's fall roadmap as the LG Flip II, is billed as a multitasking machine, able to have different applications running on the two screens so you can check your Facebook and texts simultaneously. Swype comes pre-installed, and LG Cloud Text and Group Text apps let you text from a computer or to multiple people. It all runs on Android 2.3 and a 1GHz single-core Snapdragon processor, which gives us some pause about how well it'll keep up with the fast-fingered youths LG is clearly pursuing.

Some of those fast-fingered youths will be invited to the 2011 LG U.S. National Texting Championship later this month, where the DoublePlay will be the phone of choice. The Championships start October 26, so while pricing and release date weren't announced for the DoublePlay that's a pretty good one to watch.