kin two Archive

  • Best Buy now offering Kin One free, Kin Two for $50 on contract

    Best Buy now offering Kin One free, Kin Two for $50 on contract

    Posted on May 31, 2010 | No Comments
    For all its faults, the prime reason we panned Microsoft's Kin was price. Why buy a Kin when you could get a more capable iPhone, Palm Pre or Android device for the same price? This week, it seems someone at Best Buy HQ has seen the light. As of today, the brick-and-mortar electronics superstore has knocked $50 off the price of both handsets, making the Kin One free and the Kin Two cost only $50 on a two-year contract, with no mail-in rebates or other nonsense required. Now, if only Verizon would do something about that $30 monthly data plan, your teen might finally have a vaguely compelling reason to pick one up.

    [Thanks, Sean T.]

    Best Buy now offering Kin One free, Kin Two for $50 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 May 2010 23:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • iFixIt tears down the Kin Two

    iFixIt tears down the Kin Two

    Posted on May 18, 2010 | No Comments
    I know you’ve been wondering what’s in the Kin Two since it first came out and now you can see the phone’s delicious innards up close. iFixIt tore it up and found an Nvidia Tegra processor, which is nice, and “two very cool springs.” Where did they hide the magical unicorn hoof shavings? * The Kin [...]

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  • Kin starts getting all social on Best Buy locations

    Kin starts getting all social on Best Buy locations

    Posted on May 13, 2010 | No Comments
    In the event that you've got a Best Buy a click closer to you than a Verizon store -- and you just happen to have a hankering to check out Microsoft's Kin devices -- well, you're in luck, because the phones are showing up. Of course, offering a device like this that requires a $30 data plan under the roof of a building alleging to be a "Best Buy" seems a tad disingenuous, but who are we to judge?

    [Thanks, Geoff]

    Kin starts getting all social on Best Buy locations originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 13 May 2010 23:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Microsoft and Verizon say Kin’s monthly pricing isn’t crazy, when you think about it

    Microsoft and Verizon say Kin’s monthly pricing isn’t crazy, when you think about it

    Posted on May 12, 2010 | No Comments
    Whatever you think about the Kin devices themselves, the one thing most folks can agree on is that their monthly pricing is more than a little out of step with their target audience -- except for Microsoft and Verizon, that is. Speaking to Computerworld, Microsoft senior product manager Greg Sullivan and Verizon spokesperson Brenda Raney both raised the issue of the Kin's ability to backup to the cloud when defending the high monthly price ($30 for data on top of a standard phone plan), with Sullivan saying that once customers "realize the value of this, they'll realize it's a great deal." On another note, Sullivan also used some interesting language when discussing the possibility of app downloads for the Kin, saying that "over the longer term" Microsoft will be "merging" the Kin and Windows Phone 7 platforms and adding downloadable apps. Now, that's not a radical departure from what we've heard from Microsoft before, but "merge" is a curious choice of words, isn't it?

    Microsoft and Verizon say Kin's monthly pricing isn't crazy, when you think about it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 12:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Kin available online starting tomorrow, in Verizon stores on May 13

    Kin available online starting tomorrow, in Verizon stores on May 13

    Posted on May 5, 2010 | No Comments
    Dearest members of the Upload Generation: the wait to buy the Kin of your dreams is a short one -- provided Mommy and Daddy are willing to pony up the $30 a month in data charges, of course. Verizon will be selling both the Kin One and Kin Two online starting tomorrow, May 6, for $49.99 and $99.99 respectively, after you agree to a two-year contract and come to terms with the fact that you'll be paying $100 more upfront while you wait for your rebate to be mailed to you on a debit card (par for the course these days). If you'd rather play with the devices first, your wait isn't much longer -- you'll be able to score both of them in Verizon retail locations starting a week later on the 13th.

    Continue reading Kin available online starting tomorrow, in Verizon stores on May 13

    Kin available online starting tomorrow, in Verizon stores on May 13 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 May 2010 11:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Microsoft Kin One and Two review

    Microsoft Kin One and Two review

    Posted on May 5, 2010 | No Comments
    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!

    Continue reading Microsoft Kin One and Two review

    Microsoft Kin One and Two review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 May 2010 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Microsoft Germany goes live with the KIN ONE and KIN TWO specs

    Microsoft Germany goes live with the KIN ONE and KIN TWO specs

    Posted on April 20, 2010 | No Comments
    We got our first good look at Microsoft's upcoming smart feature phones -- the KIN 1 and KIN 2 -- a week back. While the company let us man-handle the phones, Microsoft was quiet about the actual specs. But Microsoft Germany apparently thought that was silly and just released all the technical info on the two phones via its Facebook Fan Page. How nice.

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  • Microsoft Germany goes live with Kin 1 and Kin 2 specs

    Microsoft Germany goes live with Kin 1 and Kin 2 specs

    Posted on April 20, 2010 | No Comments
    We got our first good look at Microsoft's upcoming smart feature phones -- the Kin 1 and Kin 2 -- a week back. While the company let us man-handle the phones, Microsoft was quiet about the actual specs. But Microsoft Germany apparently thought that was silly and just released all the technical info on the two phones via its Facebook Fan Page. How nice.

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