Unbranded skate

[Guest liamdunn]

So if none of you already know ZTE have done a deal with brightpoint to sell the Skate or "Orange Monte Carlo" as it's going to be known on Orange unbranded and sim free, so you wont have to deal with pesky orange or..have..the...stupid branding of "Monte Carlo" on the front of your phone, expected around Q4 maybe but no prices as of yet so watch this space, well not this one obviously cos you'll be staring at a white box with a bit of text in it but you get the point.

[Guest Atomix86]

I've never been too fussed over branding tbh, especially when the orange version will be up to £80 cheaper and just as moddable

[Guest NeostarNeko]

Branding means your doing free advertising :(

[Guest Atomix86]

But its easy to cover up the tiny logo on the back, such as a case ;-)

[Guest ThermalDroid]

The unbranded skate is being bought to Europe by Bright Point who will replace ZTE's current European distributor. This is getting very confusing but basically tonnes of ZTE phone will be release Q4 unbranded across Europe.

[Guest nash1977]

I suspect the Orange Monte Carlo will not be much cheaper than the sim free price of £229. The ZTE Libra (improved version of the Blade with 5mp camera and 2.2) is already on sale in France for £150 payg, £175 sim free...not much of a price difference. In euros 169.90 and 199.90.

[Guest ThermalDroid]

But UK prices are usually far more competitive due to there being an influx of new budget android phones.

[Guest nash1977]

On Amazon UK, the Libra is priced at £180 and the Skate at £250.

If you take a look at the Orange payg prices in the Orange shop and compare them against sim free prices, the price differences are not huge.

I think Orange will set a price at £200.

Edited July 16, 2011 by nash1977

[Guest Simon O]

The unbranded skate is being bought to Europe by Bright Point who will replace ZTE's current European distributor. This is getting very confusing but basically tonnes of ZTE phone will be release Q4 unbranded across Europe.

Incorrect. ZTE currently do not have a European distributor since all current phone sales are done by the networks themselves using their own distribution network. From the end of the year ZTE devices will also be available from Brightpoint. This is the first time ZTE devices will be available from a main distributor.

[Guest PAUL1897]

http://www.superetrader.co.uk/zte/zte-skate-sim-free.html

expect the ZTE Skate to land September 19th £249 ish

[Guest The Soup Thief]

http://www.superetra...e-sim-free.html

expect the ZTE Skate to land September 19th £249 ish

Hold on one cotton-pickin second

Sure I looked at that link a day or two back and saw it for £249, but now it's back down to £219.98 inc vat

Note, this is the 800mhz version rather than the full fat 1ghz version - this is all a bit vexing

Presumably the unit to be sold in the UK through Superetrader (who, incidentally, as some may recall, still owe me a large bucket of smartphones, ordered through their website when it was on the blink for a penny apiece and never delivered, but that's another story) will be sourced by them through BrightPoint

This may not be the case, however, since I understood that BrightPoint was gonna be distributing the 1ghz version in the uk

So are Superetrader beginning distribution of the 800mhz version sourced through BrightPoint Europe (since they seem quite big - I'd never heard of them til a few days ago) rather than the UK arm

Or is the 1ghz version a fib?

I guess Sept 19th counts as virtually the start of Q4

So SeanJacko or some other, bring on the clarity!