Today Microsoft launched its new KIN platform of socially connected cell phones. KIN was developed with carrier partners Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, and hardware manufacturer Sharp. KIN is the result of Microsoft’s infamous Project Pink initiative. Both of the new KIN devices, the KIN ONE and the KIN TWO, sport QVGA resolution touchscreen displays, hardware QWERTY keyboards, and a user interface that shares much of its clean, “chrome-less” look with Microsoft’s recently launched Windows Phone 7 platform.
As the smaller of the two new KIN devices, the KIN ONE features 4GB of internal storage and a 5 megapixel camera with a bright LumiLED flash that Microsoft claims is 8 times brighter than a conventional LED flash. The KIN ONE’s camera is capable of recording video in standard definition resolution.
The KIN TWO, on the other hand, gets a full 8GB of internal storage space along with a high-res 8 megapixel camera. While it, too, sports a LumiLED flash, the KIN TWO’s camera is capable of recording HD video. Both devices can automatically add geo-tag location information to their photos. The KIN TWO also features stereo speakers, something that the KIN ONE lacks.
Each of the KIN models sports the Zune media player, 3.5mm stereo headphone jacks, and ZunePass subscriptions. Microsoft says that the KIN platform also features a “rich” browsing experience, RSS news feed support, and integrated Bing search. The central tenet of KIN, however, would appear to be its social networking strength. KIN supports Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace right out of the box and introduces a new user interface method for easily sharing messages and media, which it calls “the Spot.” Users simply drag contacts and items such as messages or pictures to the Spot on the display and send them off easily with a tap of the screen. Another core social feature of KIN is the ability to mark some contacts as favorites, which gives them priority over the hundreds of other “friends” one might have on social networking sites. This lets users keep their real friends close, while still being able to keep track of the goings on of their online-only contacts. And the best place to monitor a KIN user’s friends is on the Loop, the KIN platform’s homescreen.
The KIN Studio feature of the platform provides complete online backup and web-based viewing of all data on the phone. Users can jump online from any web browser and look at data such as their messages, videos, photos, and contacts all from a large screen browser, knowing that all of their data is backed up in the event that their phone is ever lost or damaged. The KIN Studio also offers users with a chronologically organized journal view that lets them see what happened on particular dates.
Microsoft has said that the KIN ONE and KIN TWO will be available in the United States exclusively from Verizon Wireless starting in early May, and that Vodafone will offer the devices in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK in the autumn of 2010. No pricing has been announced at this time.
