After having manufactured smartphones for the enterprise users for many years, Microsoft has finally launched its own-brand Kin for consumers, and released Kin one and Kin two models.
After having manufactured smartphones for the enterprise users for many years, Microsoft has finally launched its own-brand Kin for consumers, and released Kin one and Kin two models. These two mobile phones by Verizon Wireless exclusive sales finally published on May 13. 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. Now, below is a brief introduction about them.
Display
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.
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... Neither of the devices support microSD. 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).CameraNow 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. 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. 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. 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.
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Kin has a lot of problems. It has many missing features, and Microsoft won't allow you to install any apps on it.
Anyone thinking about buying a Kin should first do their own research, and find out about those missing features and shortcomings.
