LaptopMemo | Tech & Then Some

There they are. The Kin One and Kin Two. Both aimed at young whipper-snappers (like myself).  But this is a news report article, so let’s talk about the Kin series first. The Kin 1 (rumored as the “Turtle”), sports a QVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera, 4GB of built-in storage, a Zune music player, and a “one-handed” slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The Kin 2 (rumored as the “Pure”) contains an 8 megapixel camera for HD recording, HVGA screen, 8GB of memory (which cannot be expanded on either of the devices), two-handed QWERTY, and the KIN operating system which borrows many elements from Windows Phone 7, except all more social oriented, and supposedly fitted for use on the tiny screens.

Microsoft KIN Announcement Gallery

The main homescreen, called “The Loop” will make you go loopy at how all over the place it is, which raises some questions on to how usable these phones really are. The first things that you see are contacts, Twitter feeds, Facebook, etc. where you can easily tap on them for access to them. The Zune music player works exactly like a Zune music player, that is to say large fonts and lots of slow-motion but cool scrolling. Both phones will also work with the Zune Pass, so technically this is as close as a Zune Phone you’re going to get. Both phones launch in May on Verizon for an undisclosed price.  These phones aren’t what you would call smartphone per se, but they are nice little feature phones which trick you into thinking they are. For example, both Kin phones don’t have a calendar app or an app store. You can check out the rest at Kin.com

Still I wouldn’t have any problems with reviewing them. Press release after the break, kiddies!

Oh, and I’d like to make it clear: “Kin” is not a cool name for a phone. But it’s very interesting.

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