LG Lotus Elite now with touch screen

LAS VEGAS--LG kicks off the first day of CES 2010 with the introduction of the LG Lotus Elite, a successor to the fashionable LG Lotus messaging phone from two years ago.

LG keeps the same square flip phone aesthetic from the original Lotus, but the Lotus Elite is a much sleeker-looking device with smooth curves and the addition of an external touch screen. This means the Elite has two 2.4-inch QVGA displays, one on the inside and one on the outside. The external touch screen lets you view and access your e-mails, texts, pictures, music, and voice mail without having to open the phone. When you do flip open the phone, you'll see the familiar QWERTY keyboard as well as dedicated shortcut keys for social networking, e-mail, and text.

The Lotus Elite still has Sprint's One Click interface that gives you quick access to various functions on the phone and shortcuts to social networking tools like Facebook. Other features include a microSD card slot with up to 32GB of storage, a 2.0-megapixel camera and camcorder, Google search, GPS with Sprint Navigation, access to Sprint TV, a music player, and more.

The Lotus Elite will be available in red with the decorative tattoo seen above starting January 10, for $99.99 after a two-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate. If you want one in black instead, you'll have to wait until February 14.