Sprint confirmed in July that it would carry Motorola's new Photon Q 4G LTE smartphone, though the pricing and release date were kept mum.
Now the carrier's announced the details, and just in time, too - the Motorola Photon Q is coming to Sprint August 19 for $199.99 with a two-year contract.
Motorola's Photon Q 4G LTE is the successor to last year's Photon 4G, and the new device lives up to its "Q" moniker with a full-sized slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
"At Sprint, we recognize there is a large group of our customers that love the ease of a physical QWERTY keyboard," Sprint's product developers VP David Owens said in a press release.
It's business time
A physical keyboard may seem like an antiquity to some, but Sprint is emphasizing its advantages in a business setting.
Otherwise the Photon Q is fully modern, with 4G LTE speeds, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, a large 4.3-inch screen, an 8 megapixel camera, NFC and SD card support, 1GB of RAM, and Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich.
Its 8GB internal memory and lower-res 540 x 960 display may not be the best for media, though.
Pre-orders start today
Pre-orders for the Motorola Photon Q 4G are available starting today, and Sprint promises that pre-order customers will begin receiving the devices as early as two days before the wide release.
Sprint said in the press release that the Photon successor "provides the perfect blend of business and pleasure," though TechRadar has yet to get its hands on the device to test that claim.
Those 4G LTE speeds should help, though only if you live in one of the 15 cities in which Sprint's emerging LTE network is currently functioning.
To that end, the carrier also announced that its 4G LTE network will expand to Baltimore, Gainesville, Ga., Manhattan/Junction City, Kan., and Sherman-Denison, Texas before Labor Day.
Via The Verge
