Confirmed: Verizon discontinues Kin
By Chris Ziegler 
posted July 19th 2010 10:53AM
posted July 19th 2010 10:53AM
posted July 19th 2010 10:53AM
Microsoft KIN TWO
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Our store sold one ... It was quickly returned
@rokorre 100% KIN return rate - there's a stat that Jobs can use in his next presentation! LMAO!!
I personally thought that the Kin was an excellent idea. Everyone seems to be capturing the smartphone market, what with iOS, Android, WinMo7, etc., which has left a gaping hole in the dumb-phone market.
A lot of those dumb-phones are slow, hard to use, and not cool. The Kin appeared to have turned that on it's head. But it's a shame that they're cutting it loose so soon. It would have been a major hit here in the UK with my two sons, and millions of other school kids and students.
@Ruthless
You may be overlooking the possibility that it would have been a huge hit product here as well - were it not for the asinine decision to require a $29 data plan to use the phone. The exact demographic they were aiming for is, by all accounts, incapable of swinging that payment - not to mention the fact that if they could, they wouldn't be using a Kin but a "real" smartphone, instead. The logic was so clearly flawed it deserves an epic facepalm.
I think the fact they they released the KIN at all, shows how desperate MS were to get anything into the cellphone market.
No one in their right mind would have ever put any stock in this product - it had zero chance in a post iPhone world.
They should just give them away for free.
@Nn4458 If you can locate the dumpster where they will be residing, you can have as many as you want.
Publicity disaster.
Come on windows mobile 7 avenge your Kins death.
Microsoft should have canned this thing instead of shelving the Courier now they are both dead... Just when I was starting to like MS.
i think i kin..i think i kin..
It didn't have enough Verizon logo on the front
verizon and sites like engadget killed this phone
verizon killed it with smartphone pricing for a non smartphone ... and having their salespeople steer people away from the kin.
engadget and all the tech bloggers killed it by not understanding the phone because they are all too old. All the older reviewers that gave it to their kids to test said their kids immediately LOVED it and could use its unique UI right away ... adults didn't understand the phone and just made fun of it before, during, and after release.
the kin was an excellent feature phone.
thats what killed this phone.
@darthgault Doesn't matter how much your 12 year-old likes it when the data's $30 a month.
@Chris Ziegler
Chris, I would like to uprank you but I can not. What gives Engadget? Oh and you will not see this comment because when I hit reply next to your name, it will send an email to Darth and not you.
@darthgault This phone should never even have been born.
Engadget just put it out of it's misery...
exactly!!
i remember the days when people feared microsoft ... seems like they could have muscled a carrier a little more for a better deal. T-mobile would have seemed like a better partner.
oh well ... on to bigger and brighter WinPhone7
Now who is going to kill the iPhone?
Microsoft would probably save more money by buying the 50 kin users proper windows mobile smart phones from HTC or something, rather than keep the kin service running, which will cost ALOT more money in the long run
Wow. Talk about an Epic Fail.
Now that the phone's officially super-duper dead, who's gonna notify the next of kin?
I wonder if i brought one and then it stops working what would Verizon give as a replacement
Why would it be saying hello if it's going?
@Professor Hubert J Farnsworth You've never heard of Phil Collins then...
I'm hoping to find one of these (or a couple) on the cheap somewhere. I know it'd be difficult, but if you can get Linux to run on one, you've got some fun little pocket machines with real keyboards.
Meh. I think the idea of smart dumbphones are a bit doomed to be honest anyways.
Okay you venture capitalists out there. Now is your chance to buy up the unused hardware and slap froyo on it. The Kindroid would rock the mid-range smartphone segment!
Sometimes I really question the decisions of some of R & D Managers......The product was DOA and no one needs an MBA to come to that conclusion.
Cry me a F***ing river! LOL
how sad, the kin didnt even get a change and now its on its way to being completely gone, wish i would have got one. not for use just as a collector
Anyone else got that feeling that in 10 years from now this phone will go for $10,000 on ebay?
Uhm, duh?
Microsoft's Kin Cloud runs on a Net-top PC Server with so few Kin users.
Microsoft also determined this was a good way to beta test their new Micro-Burst Cloud Server OS on an Atom processor with a 500 user capacity limit.
when will this happen to the iPhone? In a year? 5years? 10years? I will be the happyest man in the world
I'd be pretty pissed at both Verizon and Microsoft if I were a Kin owner. That's just sad... put out ads like you will support the phone - then drop it. Real classy...