ZTE Skate smartphone will tip up in the UK

CHINESE PHONE MAKER ZTE's Skate smartphone will be available in the UK in the second half of 2011, not in May as initially projected.

ZTE was unable to give The INQUIRER any details about how much the phone will cost or what networks, if any, will carry it. At a briefing this morning in London Wu Sa, director of mobile devices at ZTE, promised the phone will appear as early as possible in the second half of this year. This will mean at least a two month delay compared to the announcement at MWC for a May release date.

The Skate is ZTE's follow up to its Blade smartphone, better known by the name San Francisco from the mobile operator Orange. The Skate is a bigger and faster version of the San Francisco with a 4.3-inch 480x800 touchscreen and an 800MHz processor running Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

It's 10.8mm thick and weights 120g. It has one rear facing 5MP camera, A-GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and G Sensors. In 2010 ZTE sold 60 million handsets worldwide and of this 2 million were smartphones, all the San Francisco model. This represents seven to eight per cent of UK smartphone sales, which ZTE has said it aims to double for 2011.

ZTE is uncertain whether its smartphone will keep the ZTE or Skate brand names or whether a network will rebrand it like Orange did with the San Francisco last year.

Details of the company's largest tablet were also given to The INQUIRER at today's briefing. µ