ZTE C78 ships on MetroPCS

Following a springtime announcement, the unabashedly purple C78 candybar from ZTE is now shipping on MetroPCS -- the Chinese manufacturer's third on MetroPCS this year, and still among the first official ZTE launches in North America. It's not going to wow any power users, but then again, power users don't really belong on MetroPCS to start; instead, you'll find 60MB of onboard storage, a 2-inch display, a VGA cam, and tri-band CDMA in a package that runs just $129 with no contract. And hey, if you buy in, we'll bet you a dollar you're the only kid on the block with a purple phone (excluding that jerk with the Colorwared Curve, of course).

Update: Turns out that ZTE didn't have any good reason to issue this "formal announcement" -- the C78's been available in all MetroPCS markets for several weeks now. Thanks, youngcalihottie and Rich!