Sprint went the route of WiMAX, which turned out to be a bad decision. Now the company is trying to make up for past mistake by adopting 4G LTE. By doing so, Sprint has to get support from device manufacturers, and that is exactly what the company did. Coming soon to a Sprint store near you is the LG Viper, the carrier's first 4G LTE device. It's odd how Sprint is making a big deal about this device as no one knows when its 4G LTE network will make a splash.

The LG Viper is one of the most powerful Android 4G LTE based smartphones out there, thought for some strange reasons, some tech pundits are calling it a mid-ranged smartphone despite it having a dual core processor. Not too long ago, single core 1GHz processors were considered to be fast. Now in 2012, quad core processors are the new high end while dual core has been pushed to mid range by some.

At first glance, the LG Viper might seem as nothing, but under the hood, this bad boy is a beast to be reckoned with. On top you will be greeted with a 4-inch capacitive touch display, 5-megapixel camera at the back, and a VGA front-facing camera for video calls. On the inside, the LG Viper is sporting a super fast 1.2GHz dual core processor, 1GB RAM, NFC, Sprint's 4G LTE and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Surprisingly, LG chose to go with Gingerbread as Android 4.0 aka. Ice Cream Sandwich is already out. It makes us wonder if this device will ever be upgraded to ICS, but for $100, we're not complaining.

In fact, the biggest selling point for the LG Viper is its $100 price tag. For $100 on a two year contract, the LG Viper can be yours, and we have to admit, giving away a dual core handset with 1GB of RAM at this price, is a steal for consumers. We thought the Nokia Lumia 900's $100 price tag was a heck of deal, but this is far better when you consider how powerful the Viper is compared to Nokia's latest Windows Phone offering.

Pre-orders begin on April 12, 2012. So saddle up and prepare to be first in line to get your hands on a LG Viper, Sprint's first LTE smartphone.

(reported by Vamien MacKalin, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)