Sprint wastes no time in releasing 4G LTE smartphones, even though the company does not have a complete 4G LTE network ready at the moment. The latest addition to Sprint's 4G LTE smartphone portfolio is the business-centric Motorola Photon Q.

Motorola announced on Thursday, July 26,  that its Photon Q Android smartphone, the successor to 2011's Photon 4G, will soon become available through Sprint in the U.S. Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE page is also up on the company's website.

Like Motorola says, the Photon Q has the largest screen available yet on a smartphone with a QWERTY slider form factor, which also takes device's thickness to 13.7 mm. The smartphone packs 4.3-inch touchscreen with what Motorola calls ColorBoost technology and a 5-row QWERTY slider keyboard ready for business users.

The smartphone runs on the dual-core 1.5 GHz processor with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of on-board storage. For expandable memory options, it has microSD card support of up to 32GB. It has a 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash support. The camera records 1080p videos at 30fps. The front-facing HD camera is 1.3-megapixel.

The connectivity features in the Photon Q include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, assisted GPS, microUSB, and microHDMI ports. With 4G mobile hotspot functionality, it supports up to 8 Wi-Fi-powered devices simultaneously.

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE runs on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform with SmartActions integration. Business class security features are also available. Government-grade encryption protects confidential data like e-mail, contacts, and calendar schedules.

The Photon Q 4G LTE packs a 1785 mAh battery, rated at 7.5 hours of talk time on continuous usage and a standby time of up to 220 hours.

Neither Motorola nor Sprint has revealed any price tag or official release date for the device. The only information at hand is that the device is hitting shelves very soon.

Sprint's Photon Q is identical to the Atrix HD that Motorola recently released on the AT&T network. Taking into consideration the $49 price tag of Atrix HD, Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE is expected to be priced similarly for a two-year service commitment with Sprint.

We cannot call the Photon Q Sprint's flagship Android smartphone. The carrier is already offering better deals like the HTC EVO 4G LTE and the Samsung Galaxy S3. However, the affordable price tag can help Motorola in selling a few thousand units of its upcoming 4G LTE smartphone.