The LG Viper will be Sprint’s first LTE handset. Sprint announced Tuesday that pre-orders for the handset will officially begin on April 12, with the phone becoming available on a yet-to-be-announced date later this month.

The LG Viper was announced at CES in January. The 4-inch touchscreen handset comes running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, has a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera as well as a VGA forward-facing cam for video chatting.

The phone has a 4GB microSD slot that can support memory cards up to 32GB in size, and is mobile hotspot capable so you can use the handset’s 4G speeds to surf the web on your laptop and other devices as well.

The handset also has built-in NFC capabilities, which will allow owners to make mobile payments at select retailers using Google Wallet.

The Viper also sports some eco-friendly features. The smartphone is protected by casing made of 50% recycled plastics, is RoHS compliant, and is ULE Platinum Certified, the highest level of environmental performance recognized by sustainable requirements established by UL Environment and Sprint. The phone also comes with an eco-friendly charger, which only consumes 0.03 watts of power when plugged into a wall socket and not the phone.

Priced at $99.99 after rebate and with a new 2-year agreement, the phone will be able to take advantage of Sprint’s Everything data plan. The unlimited plan includes unlimited web, texting, and calling starting at $79.99 per month.

Sprint‘s LTE network is still in its infancy stage. While AT&T and Verizon both boast coverage areas around the United States, Sprint has only announced a few cities that for its upcoming LTE network. The company will offer LTE service and enhanced 3G coverage in Baltimore, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston and San Antonio by the middle of this year.

In addition to the LG Viper, the company has already announced plans to release the LTE-capable Galaxy Nexus on its network later this year.

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