ZTE Tania 'affordable' Windows Phone price outed

Windows Phone fans -- hi there Steve Ballmer! Howdy Stephen Elop! -- hoping to get their mitts on the freshly announced ZTE Tania should expect to shell out £250 for a SIM-free handset, when it lands in the UK next month.

Mobile blog Recombu spotted listings for the ZTE Tania on online retailers Clove and Expansys -- for the princely sum of £249.99 (including VAT).

The ZTE Tania isn't due to arrive in the UK until next month so Clove and Expansys are only offering pre-orders as yet, with Clove noting the first Tanias are due to arrive in the week kicking off on 13 February.

ZTE has been touting the Tania as the most affordable WinPho device on the market -- saying it will sell on contract for between £10 and £20.

The Tania's £250 SIM-free price-tag puts it squarely in the mid-range, alongside Android smart phones such as the Samsung Galaxy W and the Motorola Defy+.

Despite this middling pricing, the ZTE Tania sports a 4.3-inch touchscreen. It also has a 1GHz processor and runs Mango -- the latest version of Windows Phone (7.5), which brings the joys of multi-tasking to WinPho lovers.

The ZTE Tania will be battling it out for your mid-range cash with the similarly priced Nokia Lumia 710 -- also due to land next month.

Both have 5-megapixel cameras, but the ZTE Tania steals a march on the Lumia 710 by offering to stick a 4.3-inch screen in your pocket vs the Lumia's 3.7 inches. That said, the screen resolution on both handsets is the same: 480x800 pixels.

Are you smitten with the ZTE Tania or were you hoping it would be a tad cheaper? Let us know your mid-range thoughts in the comments below or shout it out on our reasonably priced Facebook wall.