ZTE USA, Inc., subsidiary of the China-based ZTE Corporation, has unveiled the availability of its C79 in the US. The new phone is offered by the regional carrier MetroPCS; hence, not all the mobile users across the States will be able to get it.

The C79 comes in a clamshell form factor, somehow resembling several Motorola handsets (so, it looks pretty nice). Its features are not too advanced, but they're still good for those who only want a basic handset.

Working on both the CDMA and AWS frequencies, ZTE's new phone brings the following: a 176 x 220 pixels internal display with 262 colors, a 96 x 64 pixels external display with only 64K colors, a 1.3 Megapixel camera with auto focus, self timer and flash, @metro capability (for downloading games, ringtones and other content), Music player, dedicated music controls on the external case, stereo Bluetooth, 69MB of internal memory and microSD card support for up to 2GB.

When closed, ZTE C79 measures 3.5 x 1.75 x 0.7 inches (89 x 44.5 x 17 millimeters). The clamshell comes with a 1000 mAh Li-Ion battery said to provide up to 3.6 hours of talk-time or up to 200 hours of stand-by time.

"At ZTE, we provide carriers with handsets that have great features and design at an affordable price because we know that is what many consumers today are searching for," declared Dr. George Sun, Chief Executive Officer of ZTE USA. "With the ZTE C79, we are giving consumers everything they are looking for on a single, sleek device. Furthermore, MetroPCS is the perfect partner to help us deliver this handset to the U.S. market."

ZTE C79 can be bought from MetroPCS's retail stores as well as from the carrier's official website. The flip phone is available in only one color version (red with black) and it's sold for the retail price of $169.