Microsoft Kin One and Two review

Make no mistake: the Kin One and Two are coming into the world as the black sheep of the phone industry, and Microsoft would have it no other way. Straddling the fence somewhere between a dedicated smartphone and high-spec featurephone, they've been tricky to understand since the day they were first leaked (even Microsoft seemed unsure of what the devices meant until very recently). Billed as a Gen-Y (the "upload generation") social networking tool -- and sold in advertisements as the gateway to the time of your young, freewheeling life -- the Kin phones have admittedly been something of head-scratcher to those of us in the gadget world. Built atop a core similar (but not identical) to the Windows Phone 7 devices coming later this year, manufactured by Sharp, and tied into partnerships with Verizon and Vodafone, the phones dangerously preempt Microsoft's reemergence into the smartphone market. Hell, they're even called Windows Phones. But the One and Two aren't like any Windows Phones you've ever seen. With stripped-down interfaces, deep social networking integration, and a focus on very particular type of user, Microsoft is aiming for something altogether different with Kin. So do these devices deliver on that unique, social experience that Redmond has been selling, or does this experiment fall flat? We've taken both handsets for a spin, and we've got all the answers in our full review... so read on to find out!

Kin One and Two review

Hardware

The Kin One and Two should look a little familiar -- they come off like mutated cousins of the Palm Pre. The One is short and squat, sort of disc shaped, with a smaller display that slides down into the center of the handset; the Two, meanwhile, is a larger, elongated device with a wide landscape keyboard. Both devices feature capacitive touchscreen displays (a 2.6-inch, 320 x 240 QVGA screen on the One and a 3.4-inch, 480 x 320 HVGA version for the Two) with thick, plastic coatings. Around the sides, the phones both feature the same complement of buttons: volume rockers, a dedicated camera key, a sleep / power button, plus a "back" button on the lower faces of the devices. The phones use a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, take micro-USB cables, and have cameras equipped with LED flashes on their backs.

From an industrial design standpoint, there isn't a lot that's laudable here -- but there's also not too much to complain about. As we said, the designs themselves don't feel tremendously original, but the company is ripping off good material. The One has a little more character than the Two, largely due to its uncommon size and use of the rarely-seen portrait slider mechanism. It's also got a little color highlight (well, white) around the screen when it's closed, giving it a kind of 60's Formica countertop feel that we like. Both handsets do seem a little iffy on the build quality; the slider mechanisms feel fine, but there are lots of open spaces and notches that make the devices seem less rugged than we would prefer -- the Pre and the G1 have that same problem. On the Two, the display is coated with a thicker plastic element that almost melts around the edges, giving it a dipped-in-shellac appearance that's refreshingly retro.

Both phones have slide-out hardware keyboards -- a welcome sight. The One seemed a bit mushier to our thumbs, and the extreme curve of the keyboard made typing a little more of a challenge. The Two has a much clickier and pleasant keyboard, though the narrowness of the keys might be troubling for users with larger hands. The keyboards were both usable, but we do take issue with the lettering, which is difficult to read because it runs off of the sides of the individual keys. Also, the special characters are quite difficult to see, and on the software side, there is zero text correction or prediction, even for simple words like "isn't." You're on your own here.

In your hand, both devices feel light but not without substance, and the matte material used on the backing is pleasant enough to the touch. Neither one of these phones is going to stop you in your tracks when you see it, but the designs are also quite approachable and likable, so points go to Microsoft on that.

Internals

Both the One and the Two sport the Tegra APX2600 CPU -- the same as in the Zune HD, so you've got plenty of horsepower -- and have 256MB of DDR RAM on-board. The One has a paltry 4GB of storage for your pics, music, and video, while the Two ups the game to 8GB... which still isn't hugely competitive. Neither of the devices support microSD, so if you were planning on some memory expansion, look elsewhere. The devices have light and proximity sensors, an accelerometer, and GPS chips inside, along with 802.11b/g, EvDO Rev. A, and Bluetooth 2.1 (which supports A2DP and AVRCP profiles). In our testing, we didn't see any remarkable performance out of the Tegra chips, though we'd bet dollars to donuts that they're running a little less hot so the phones can suck a little more life out of these batteries (1240 mAh for the One, and 1390 mAh for the Two). Overall, you won't be shocked by the performance or specs of these devices, but you shouldn't feel cheated either -- the Kins are fairly modern phones as far as the guts are concerned.

Displays

The Kin One and Two don't have particularly notable displays, though they get the job done well enough. Thanks to the light sensors in the phones, when you first boot up you'll find yourself in auto brightness mode, which for us was way, way too dim. Digging down we eventually found a way to switch to manual settings (more on that in a little bit). The display on the One was about as squashed as you'd expect it to feel. Luckily for Microsoft, there's not a lot of content being pushed at any one time, but we still felt like we were squinting every time we had to try to make out text on the screen. It's not just low resolution -- the pixel density doesn't seem too tight either. On the Two things felt a little better. Again, the Kin UI doesn't really need a lot of space, but it's nice to have more room, especially when it comes to dealing with email. Both of the displays seemed a bit washed out to us, and colors weren't quite as vibrant as we would have liked.

The touch sensitivity of the screens seemed up to snuff with their smartphone contemporaries. We did experience a few moments of sluggishness or unresponsiveness, though we're certain that that has a lot more to do with the software than the hardware. Pinch-to-zoom and other familiar gestures (like lots of swiping) generally went off without a hitch; touch response was definitely improved from when we'd first played with the phones, and it gives us hope that the Windows Phone 7 experience will be even better. The Kin displays work and look fine for the most part, but we didn't walk away feeling stunned by the screens.

Camera

Now Microsoft has been making a big deal out of the cameras on these phones, having equipped the One with a 5 megapixel shooter, and the Two with an 8 megapixel version that does... wait for it... 720p video. Why HD video might be important to the teen audience the company seems to be trying to appeal to here is anyone's guess, but we digress. We want to stress that the Kin ads show off a lot of heavy camera use, so we get the impression that the company intends picture taking to be a big part of how Kin users utilize their phones. So how are these memory-capturing tools when put to the test? Honestly... not very good. For starters, just the act of trying to take a photo with the hardware buttons on these phones is really quite uncomfortable; somehow, both the One and Two seem to force your hand into a position where you're blocking the lens with a finger or two. Once you do get a grip you like, pressing that button yields inconsistent results. On the One, it's usually good for taking a picture after a firm press, but sometimes there's no reaction at all, while on the Two, it tends to focus in and out and then never snap a photo. We had to press unreasonably hard on the key, and the results were usually marred by the movement of the camera... which was a result of pressing too hard.

Kin Two camera shots

Once we could get the phones to snap a picture, the results were mixed at best. With the flash on or set to auto, the pictures ended up almost universally blown out, sometimes just revealing themselves on review as a white blur. Both the One and Two are equipped with autofocus lenses, though the One seemed to struggle much less with focusing in on subjects. On the other hand, its images looked more washed out to us. To sum up, taking still photos with both Kin devices was a frustrating, unrewarding affair that yielded more bad than good. Perhaps if the speed gets cranked up and that flash can be tamed in a future revision, the results may improve -- but for now, the moment you'll be capturing the most is just after something really good happened. Or just a flash of light.

On the video front, things did look a little bit up, especially in the case of the Kin Two. As we mentioned, it's capable of shooting 720p video, and what we saw wasn't completely cringe-worthy. Still, there is some nasty compression going on (which you have no control over), but on a bright day, we captured some pretty handsome shots which seemed well balanced as far as colors were concerned. The One and Two have image stabilization, but it wasn't exactly cranking on overdrive, and we had some really, really troubling wind noise (as you can hear on the video). Besides those minor problems, you can safely leave the Flip at home if you've got the Two in your pocket... just know that you can't up HD video to the Kin Studio -- you have to sync them with Zune on your PC, which goes firmly against Microsoft's mantra with these products that everything you capture is instantly whisked into the cloud. More on that in a moment.

Sound quality / Speakerphone

So we'll just be straight with you here -- we didn't get the overwhelming impression that Microsoft expects you to be talking a lot on these phones. If the literature, ads, and general functionality of the One and Two tell us anything, it's that phone calls are dead, and everyone is Facebooking like it's going out of style. Whether or not that attitude had any impact on the quality of the earpiece or speakerphone here is anyone's guess... but they certainly align perfectly, in that the sound quality of the phone seems like an afterthought. The earpiece itself was decent enough, but we thought the speakerphone left quite a bit to be desired. The Kin certainly isn't the only phone out there with poor speakerphone sound though, so this really didn't come as much of a shock to us.

Software

Okay, this is the big fish. The Kin wasn't designed for early adopters of the most cutting edge hardware -- that's obvious. What it was designed to do, however, was work really well doing a couple of key tasks, most of them centered around social networking, photos and video, and some overarching concept of capturing your mobile / digital life in a whole new and easy manner. Lofty goals indeed for a product like this, and unfortunately for everyone, Microsoft misses the mark by a long shot. It's not even close.

The user interface of the Kin is laid out in a deceptively simple manner. When you first boot the phone, you're asked for a username and password and then taken to your home screen. Let's talk for a moment about that login process: you may think that the Kin, like most modern phones, would be asking you for a preexisting username and password from something like Gmail or Yahoo! so that you can pull in your email account and perhaps contacts. It certainly seems like that's what's happening when you first turn the phone on -- however, that's not the score. What's actually happening is that you're creating a Windows Live account, one which the phone uses to sync your Studio data back and forth with. You actually are never given the opportunity to add a Gmail or Yahoo! account for anything but plain vanilla email (unlike with webOS, Android, or the iPhone). Therefore, if you're a user of one of these wildly popular services, your only hope for adding your contacts is dumping a .csv file from your account, then uploading that to your Live account, then praying that somehow the magical contact fairy makes your dreams a reality. We're still waiting for our Live account to sync those contacts to our phone or Studio.

Now, back to the main phone operation. The home screen (or screens, rather) consist of three panels which you gesture left or right to get into and out of. In the center is the "Loop," where you see Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and RSS updates; off to the right you have your favorite contacts, basically a grid of people you like talking to; on the left is your "apps" page, which contains links to your camera, browser, email, and so on. So far so good, right? In addition to your three main pages, you've got a little clock in the right hand corner at all times, as well as a "recent" tab in the left corner -- both bring up pop-up menus, the latter giving you quick access to recent applications, and the former showing you the phone's battery life status and network connections. Oh, and down in the middle of the phone is a little dot called the "Spot" -- let's try and explain what that does.

The Spot is meant to be a point on the device where you can drag all manner of content, and then share that content with friends. For instance, you might want to send a text message to a group of friends. Easy: just drag their faces onto the Spot, then click on it. You'll be taken to a page where you can send an email or an MMS or SMS message. Simple enough. You can also do more complex actions, like drag a Facebook or Twitter message, a URL, and a photo into this area, then drag your friends into the Spot and send them an email -- only an email -- with all that content. It seems like a good idea, but in practice, it makes very little sense. A video demo shown on the Kin site offers a scenario where you might drag a concert venue, a band's MySpace page, a few photos you've taken, and a friend's status update to the Spot and then send an email about going to show... but no one really works like that, and the Kin UI doesn't make it any more logical. It's actually a really cumbersome way to communicate -- dragging one abstract thing towards another abstract thing doesn't make more sense than deciding to send an email, typing a few addresses, and throwing some pictures or links into the message... it just doesn't. You can't share those kind of mixed messages on Facebook or Twitter or MySpace either -- it's strictly for email. The more complex your combos get, the harder it is to get them out. One thing we couldn't do with the Spot was share music (or even a link or snippet) from the Zune app. We wanted to drag a song to the Spot, but there is no Spot in the Zune player! So much for "the social," right?

But the obtuseness of this user experience doesn't stop with the Spot -- it permeates the entire interface as though decisions about how things should work were made almost arbitrarily, without anyone stopping to test them in the real world. The Twitter implementation is a great example of that. You can add your Twitter account to the phone and see updates from people you follow, and you can update your status from the top of the Loop... but that's all you can do. You can't retweet something, you can't send a direct message, you can't go to single person's feed to see all their updates, and you can't even open a link in a Twitter message from the Loop! To do something as simple as look at an image someone has tweeted, you must first click on the tweet, then click "open in browser," then wait for the tweet to load on twitter.com, then finally click the link to see the image or URL. It's a shocking omission for a phone which claims to be about nothing but social networking.

The basic premise of the Loop also presented problems. The idea is that you can quickly glance at all of your friends' updates and respond to them quickly, but it soon becomes a daunting task just trying to understand who is saying what. The average Facebook user has 130 friends (we tested with accounts of over 700 and 200), Twitter adds noise to the mix, MySpace compounds it... and the phone only updates every 15 non-user-adjustable minutes. Sometimes less! What happens is that you can't really keep track of any conversations, and your friends (or in our case, lots of people you don't really know) become less about their individual voices, and more about random shouts in a big crowded room. The Kin might be more appropriately called the Facebook or MySpace phone, since it seems to want to play nice with those two sites more than anything, but even when trying to comment on something on Facebook, upload a picture, or update our status, we ran into frustrating timeouts and stalls that made us want to throw the phone across the room. Overall, it's just a deeply, deeply frustrating and inconsistent experience.

Beyond the social networking aspects of the phone, we also take issue with the browser, which is abysmally slow and buggy (it consistently crashed while trying to load any complex web pages like Engadget), and the email client, which seemed to have trouble displaying even the most rudimentary HTML messages. The only real saving grace on the software side is the Zune app, which is identical to the Zune HD interface, but allows you to download music and movies over the air (yes, even over 3G), which is almost worth the price of admission. Almost, but not quite. We had some Zune issues too, like the aforementioned lack of the Spot, the fact that it only displays in portrait mode (except searches, which then forces you to do some weird rotating back and forth), and a situation with certain albums we tried to download which were "computer only" -- meaning it didn't matter if we had a Zune Pass or not. We wish we had more to say on the "other" parts of the phone, but there's just not much there. No app store, no IM client, no games, no calendar... not even visual voicemail or some carrier-hitched GPS app. Teens still play games, don't they? Microsoft says that down the road the Windows Phone and Kin ecosystems will merge, yielding software for these devices... but they may be a long wait from what we can tell.

While using the One and Two we found ourselves consistently confused or surprised by how many bad little interface problems there are. Not only does the phone make it hard to do simple tasks -- and not only are the social networking features poorly implemented -- but the handsets are often sluggish, hiccupy, and downright crash-prone. We were told by the devices on more than one occasion that we needed to restart (while performing basic tasks), and often it would just throw us a blank screen while we waited for the device to come back from whatever tragic internal situation was occurring. It would be wonderful to say more good about the phone's UI -- but we just can't.

The Studio

One aspect of this family of devices that does show a lot of promise is the Kin Studio -- essentially an online repository of all of your SMS and MMS messages, call logs, photos, videos (non-HD, one minute long clips), contacts, RSS feeds, as well as your social networking service updates. The Studio interface is all handled by Silverlight, so it's fairly robust. We can definitely see a future where not only is your phone kept backed up in this fashion, but you also have access to voicemail, email, your music and video collection, and other bits of content you want to keep accessible (something like Dropbox, but integrated). It's a great start, but of course it's hindered by the devices themselves -- it's hard to become invested in the ecosystem of the Kin phones when their actual performance is so off-putting. It should also be noted that the syncing process takes a bit of time, and you never really know when your content will be available, which is a rather annoying aspect of the whole experience we hope Microsoft corrects. You should have some control over when and how you send your photos and video to the cloud.

Battery life

Microsoft told us that its goal was for users to be able to take off for a weekend road trip with these things and leave their chargers behind. We didn't have a long time to test battery life, but in our experience both the One and the Two held up fairly well under heavy use. In particular, the One was left off the charger quite a bit, yet still managed to go for more than two days with sporadic use. We'll chalk the better performance up to that heavily controlled sync schedule (once every 15 minutes at the most).

Pricing / Wrap-up

When we first saw the Kin phones, the editors at Engadget (and lots of other folks in the industry) said that price would be the big question when it came to these phones. If they really were destined for the hands of tweens and teens, then they would have to be offered at a price that was attractive to their parents, which means something decidedly below the standard smartphone deal: a device for $100 or $200, plus a pricey data plan. There seemed to be a general sentiment that if Verizon and Microsoft could partner on something that hit a lower price point for the devices coupled with a bargain-rate data package, they just might have a foot in the door, despite the obvious limitations of the device.

Even if that were true -- if a great price could cancel out the faults of these phones (which it can't) -- Microsoft and Verizon have failed there as well. The One and Two are being offered for $49.99 and $99.99 respectively after a $100 mail-in rebate... and they must be coupled with a standard Verizon smartphone plan, which clocks in at $29.99 a month. We were frankly shocked when we heard the pricing schemes (you also need a voice plan, of course, which will set you back another $39.99 monthly). To offer what is clearly so much less than a smartphone with a smartphone data plan is insulting to consumers, and doubly insulting considering who it looks like these phones are aimed at. If you're going to shell out this kind of money each month, it would be foolish to even consider these devices given the much, much better options out there. Even counting out the iPhone or similar devices on other carriers (many of which are rather attractive), just take a look at the offerings on Verizon right now. You could get a Pre Plus -- an immeasurably better phone with much of the social networking integration of the Kin devices -- for $29 coupled with a smartphone and voice plan. Or you could spend a little more upfront and get a BlackBerry Tour 9630, Droid, Incredible, or Droid Eris -- all much, much better phones with excellent social networking options. The list really goes on -- and again, if you were a teenager or young adult with all of these great options laid out before you, the idea of choosing this severely limited device which doesn't do a single thing better than even the most basic Android device is kind of crazy. Microsoft has hinted that it wants to shake up the text-centric featurephone market with Kin, but guess what? You categorically cannot even fathom to do that when you're charging for smartphone data. It's insulting to suggest otherwise.

And that about sums it up -- there are much better choices for much less money on the market, and Microsoft hasn't demonstrated to us why you would choose this phone over those. You could argue that the 720p video recording is a hook, but our results weren't that outstanding, and we don't know anyone who needs HD video on a phone so desperately that they're willing to overlook all of these faults. In the end, we're left with two orphan devices -- phones that feel like they should have been killed before they made it to market, but somehow slipped through. It's clear to us from conversations we've had with Microsoft that there are people at the company with good ideas about what phones should and shouldn't do, but we don't feel the Kin is representative of those ideas. The execution (or lack thereof) on these products makes us legitimately concerned about what the company will do with Windows Phone 7. We can only hope that the similarities between those devices and the Kin handsets don't stretch much further than the "Windows Phone" label, because in our estimation, Kin is one side of the family that needs to be disowned... quickly.

[fischju Posted May 5th 2010 12:03AM]

Nice to meet you too, phone series that reminds me of the toy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles communicator I had years ago, a form factor I am glad to see survived the 90s.

[Siryj Posted May 5th 2010 12:09AM]

@fischju Is the first one for people with 20/5 vision?

[Discourse Posted May 5th 2010 12:22AM]

@fischju I like how they incorporated some of the Courier's drag to the pocket features in this device.

[johnstathakis3 Posted May 5th 2010 12:30AM]

@fischju gartenberg sucks

[crawdad689 Posted May 5th 2010 12:36AM]

@fischju

AWESOME review.

TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE FAIL of a product.

You do have a way w/ words, Josh. Your writing often humors me. :-)

[Archon Posted May 5th 2010 12:45AM]

@fischju
Things to trash: Most everything
Things to keep: Studio

[aimran Posted May 5th 2010 1:38AM]

@fischju

What Microsoft should have done: Take the Zune HD design. Put a phone inside it. Put Windows Phone 7 on it. Beef up the specs. Name the phone some else like "Zune Phone". Call it a day.

[nikitameirans Posted May 5th 2010 2:06AM]

@fischju Factual review. Not everyone is a gadget enthusiast and need all stuff in their phone. People just want to use their phone to connect with social network, take picture and listen music and call people. Normal people don't show off how this UI or GUI is so cool and pwn your phone GUI or UI. They just want something that is easy to use and easy to use is not a list with icons. Reactions to the turtle phone. http://j.mp/microsoft-kin-opinions

[bjsguess Posted May 5th 2010 2:19AM]

@crawdad689

I'm checking my iPod Touch right now. I also don't see the option to send music from the music player to my friends. This is a shocking omission since the iPod Touch/iPhone have their roots as an MP3 player. Funny thing is I don't remember either device being killed for this lack of functionality. Same goes for the mediocre camera and frankly awful implementation on social networking when you want to IM, text, and update Facebook all without having to open and close apps down. Hopefully, these will get fixed with the 4G.

The Spot makes perfect sense for when you have multiple items going into an email. You don't need to toggle between apps. You simply grab what you want and drop it on the spot. Couldn't be easier. Now, if you just want to bang out an email or text then yes, it won't be very useful. However, let's take something as simple as sending a picture to three friends. You find your picture and drag it to the spot. Swipe over to your contacts and drag them to the spot. Done. I don't see how that is so difficult compared to competing solutions from Android or Apple. It's not worse - just different.

The review is RIGHT ON however when it comes to pricing. There was a real chance to do something special here. Offering a $10-$15/month data plan would have been a popular move. I do agree that at $30 + $40 (minimum for voice), this is just way too expensive. There are such better options available. Huge missed opportunity for MS and Verizon. They could have tapped into a market that is currently not being served (the "I want more than a dumbphone but am not willing to pay for a smartphone plan" crowd).

[fischju Posted May 5th 2010 2:34AM]

@fischju I'm so sorry inbox. And I'm sad for all of you who've never had one: http://www.ninjaturtles.com/toys/1992/turtlecom.jpg

(PS: A picture of the Kin came up when I was searching google for 'turtle communicator')

[Odin Posted May 5th 2010 2:55AM]

@bjsguess

You don't see those options in your iPod because it dosent boast that its a completely socially networked device. There's obviously a difference.

If i want to send three photos, i can choose those three from my album. My intentions to send three photos so i obviously go to my photos to do that. The review is saying that the "spot" becomes this vague nebulous idea. The concept makes sense on paper but using in real life is a whole different expectation. But yea, you haven't used one.

[rsramkee Posted May 5th 2010 3:08AM]

@Discourse Absolutely... Steve, bring back the courier... will forgive you for the Kin

[TC Posted May 5th 2010 5:50AM]

@crawdad689
The only possible explanation I can think of is that Microsoft is trying to create its own 'Classic Coke' effect by releasing a device so pants that it makes everyone realize WinMo 6.5 is OK. They will then follow up with Cherry WinMo (WinMo 7) which everyone will love because even though it's nothing special amongst the competition, it feels that so much more special than this.

[zeroinfinity2 Posted May 5th 2010 6:42AM]

@rsramkee
Amen..

I remember saying when I first heard about these that microsoft doesn't get it.. Turns out I was right.

[David Bailey Posted May 5th 2010 7:00AM]

@fischju Wow. I was seriously considering getting one right the way through the review, despite its downsides until the price paragraph. Why in gods name would anyone get one for the same price as a smartphone? Why wouldn't they just get a smartphone? Serious mistake.

[David Bailey Posted May 5th 2010 7:39AM]

@David Bailey Also, over here in the UK the reason that not that many people get the iPhone is the ridiculous price point- it is way overpriced. This phone is even worse, because by charging the same stupidly high price for a phone that essentially does much less it is ten times more overpriced.

[2late2die Posted May 5th 2010 7:52AM]

@aimran That is so true. I mean heck, it wouldn't have to be their only phone, they could've kept working on more "innovative" stuff in the background, but in the meantime, really, how hard would it have been to put an ear piece and a mic into a zune HD?

[html5FLOP Posted May 5th 2010 8:36AM]

@fischju
I hate reading Topolsky reviews.. they are all the same "whine whine whine Microsoft whine.. Apple is the best".. get a life dude.

[David Bailey Posted May 5th 2010 8:44AM]

@html5FLOP To be fair, he cited the Pre as the best alternative, not the iPhone.

[Duke Posted May 5th 2010 9:08AM]

@aimran
exactly - a Zune phone without the bs social network hipster elements. Also, I don't know why he thinks music should suddenly be shared from phones through the spot - that would open the filesharing issues and make ms the center of abuses. I understand how the Zune did it but that was phone to phone, not cloud storage of songs for mass distribution. My iPhone doesn't share music either.

[poblano Posted May 5th 2010 9:32AM]

@aimran

Yahtzee! yes, yes, yessir....

[pddro Posted May 5th 2010 11:24AM]

@bjsguess Your comparison of the Kin to the iPod is amusing, at best. It never really mattered if the iPod didn't excel at social networking, it's a music player and it does that very well.

The Kin though, tries to get into our pants by claiming that it's the most Social Phone evah. So when these empty promises get discovered, and we find out its social media integration feels like mashed potatoes (no cheese, no broccoli), then the reviewer will kill it for that.

You cant promise you can dance Salsa and then just do the Cha Cha Cha when you finally have to walk the walk.

You're other two paragraphs though, my friend, were [kisses fingers like an Italian] exquisite.

[tazmond Posted May 5th 2010 11:53AM]

@aimran ...or phune .. or zhone

[shadowj0 Posted May 5th 2010 12:40PM]

@fischju

I am reminded of Helio phones now that I think about it.

[Khav Posted May 5th 2010 2:25PM]

@aimran I've been saying that ever since I got my Zune HD, but I'm kind of hoping they save that for a second or third generation Windows Phone

[tekdemon Posted May 5th 2010 3:40PM]

@fischju Sounds like this thing needs a service pack from MS before they release it...

[abugida Posted May 5th 2010 5:25PM]

@David Bailey
"Also, over here in the UK the reason that not that many people get the iPhone is the ridiculous price point- it is way overpriced."

Speak for yourself. O2 is on record for selling 1 million iPhones in 2007/08 and another million in 2009. If you include Orange and Vodafone, total iPhone sales are probably close to 3 million by now.

[kerinalokan Posted May 5th 2010 8:53PM]

@Discourse People do stuff like that. especially people in generation y and z. if you are not into social networking either you are not part of that age group of people or been in a cave. like there is so much people on Facebook alone that if it was a country it would be the 4th largest population. I believe that's the reason why Kin is made. Opinions. http://j.mp/microsoft-kin-opinions

[eepyaich Posted May 6th 2010 9:18AM]

@David Bailey At least in the UK, we have sensibly priced data plans. You generally seem to be able to get a good unlimited data plan for around £5. My wife, for example, has a reasonable voice plan and unlimited data for a total of £20 per month. $30 for data and then $40 for voice seems almost criminal to me!

[recharged95 Posted May 6th 2010 4:09PM]

@aimran
Microsoft had a serious win with a Zune phone, simple as that.

Hence the difference between MS and Apple. MS doesn't do the obvious, while Apple does.

[David Bailey Posted May 6th 2010 5:56PM]

@eepyaich Yeah I get unlimited data and 1500 texts and minutes for £12.50 a month in Scotland on o2. Vodafone have never had terribly competitive pricing though, so there's a chance they will still overprice it.

[kikkerland Posted May 6th 2010 6:53PM]

@David Bailey err, we must live in different UKs. In the UK I live in the iPhone has sold incredibly well. It is hard to go somewhere without seeing someone without one. When it was introduced it brough with it far more affordable data contracts than were available before.

Also, it is given away 'free' on some contracts. Free, is, of course, relative - you pay for it in the contract.

[ibransond Posted May 6th 2010 6:55PM]

@nikitameirans But it fails at social networking aswell...

[sebastiendj Posted May 17th 2010 6:44PM]

@fischju

Why can't Microsoft simply add phone/contact integration in the ZUNE HD.

Whouldn't they be more successfut then trying to re-invent the wheel for the generation "Donatello wants to upload"

[Cynical Hippie Posted May 5th 2010 12:06AM]

But kin it blend?

[JeremyBenthem Posted May 5th 2010 12:33AM]

@Cynical Hippie
sure-you-kin

[Ross Posted May 5th 2010 12:43AM]

@Cynical Hippie kin't tell you

[xinjii Posted May 5th 2010 1:12AM]

@JeremyBenthem little street fighter humor there?

[ramifications Posted May 5th 2010 3:02AM]

@Cynical Hippie

Data plan pricing is a fuKIN fail !

[Radukk Posted May 5th 2010 12:06AM]

FAIL
for smartphone plan.

[Spaceshipped Posted May 5th 2010 12:09AM]

@Radukk
METAFAIL

[Spaceshipped Posted May 5th 2010 12:11AM]

@Spaceshipped

Ok this is my last comment...

A Pre plus is cheaper than a kin one, on contract with the same required monthly data plan and FREE mobile hotspot.

ALPHAFAIL

[StewieGriffin Posted May 5th 2010 12:18AM]

@Radukk

We all thought the Wii was going to be a failure and although in its case it took motion tracking/gaming to new heights, much can be said with how social networking has become a core part of the industry/society and why the Kin is Microsoft's platform for this so called "niche".

Maybe Microsoft truly feels their is an untap market with the young crowd as Nintendo gave birth to mainstream casual gaming and in the process got minted even more.

Its all about pricing, marketing, and support for the platform that will determine its success.

[StewieGriffin Posted May 5th 2010 12:27AM]

@StewieGriffin just to add to the comment, at the moment the price plan seems ridiculous but ultimately I'm sure verizon and Microsoft will be watching the public's reponse to sales to figure out the sweet spot that will make it afordable and profitable.
They obviously are forgetting the point of such device and looking at it from a smartphone perspective which is completely stupid on their part.

[mastercheif Posted May 5th 2010 12:29AM]

@Radukk

If Verizon and Microsoft knew what was best for them, they would have released this with either free data (I can't imagine especially with the 15 min update it uses too much) or the $10 "multimedia phone" plan. This phone does nothing a real smartphone does and yet costs the same. Their is an argument that people pay for simplicity and look to apple as the example. But people are only willing to pay more for less features if it does those features better than anything else, and the kin does nothing better than anything.

[UnknownUnicorn Posted May 5th 2010 12:37AM]

@StewieGriffin It's just the thing is that they failed at even the pricing. I would rather a Droid Incredible at that price. Also the fact that it can't really receive any support. MS has blocked third party support. However, the marketing seems alright, but the plainness of the phone will probably cause most people's eyes to skim over it. All in all, it is too early to judge whether or not it is a failure financially, but it is certainly a failure in hardware at the moment. An app program may be able to save it but right now things are not looking up.

[Wildman Posted May 5th 2010 1:19AM]

@Radukk
they shoulda gone sprint or t-mo, someone who can do something outside the norm for pricing.

[JW Posted May 5th 2010 1:28AM]

@Spaceshipped
Its a tragedy that this makes it and the Courier gets killed.

[capnbob66 Posted May 5th 2010 1:33AM]

@Radukk I imagine they need a standard plan because for all the things it is missing, it has a browser, uploads hi-res photos, surfs the web and up/downloads social net content and zune tunes, which is probably the majority of bandwidth of most real smartphones. A cheap plan would expose the carrier to risk in case unimaginably this POS were to be successful. Which they kind of ensured it won't be..

[redkamel Posted May 5th 2010 1:56AM]

@StewieGriffin yeah but the thing no one believed about the wii was the concept...the motion controller worked. This review makes it sound like the concept is iffy...but it doesn't matter because the hardware and software don't even function in a usable way.