Nov 29, 2010 11:42 GMT  ·  By

One of Germany's major carriers, E-Plus recently announced the introduction of its own branded Android smartphone BASE Lutea. The device is a rebranded version of ZTE's Blade handset, also known as Orange San Francisco.

Even though the tech specs of the smartphones are almost the same, the design differences are more obvious.

BASE Lutea smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm QCT MSM7227-1 600 MHz processor and runs on the Android 2.1 (Eclair) platform.

It comes with a 3.5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 262K colors and 480x800 pixels resolution, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate and proximity sensor for auto turn-off of the screen.

The Lutea measures 116 x 56.5 x 11.8mm, it weighs 130g (battery included) and embeds a Li-Ion 1250 mAh rated for up to 192 hours of standby time or 4 hours of talk time.

The new device comes with 512 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM and 150 MB of internal memory, complemented by a microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB, 2GB card included).

Other highlights of the smartphone include: HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g connectivity, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, MP3 player, Stereo FM radio with RDS and GPS with A-GPS support.

However, unlike ZTE Blade, which features a 3-megapixel photo snapper, the BASE Lutea boasts an upgraded 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and video recording capabilities.

It is unclear if the BASE Lutea handset will come bundled with E-Plus-branded apps.

E-Plus will start offering the smartphone from the beginning of December, for free with a two-year contract.

Customers need to sign a new contract with a monthly fee of at least EUR14, which includes 200 MB of high-speed data (HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps).

Users that go over the 200 MB limit will get their data transfer speeds slowed down to EDGE connectivity.