Microsoft announced today the unveiling of two new phones made specifically for the consumption of social media. The two handsets will be called the KIN ONE and KIN TWO, respectively, and are from Microsoft’s rumored “Project Pink.” Both phones will be offered exclusively through Verizon in the US in May, and from Vodafone in several European countries in the fall.
“Working closely with our partners, we saw an opportunity to design a mobile experience just for this social generation — a phone that makes it easy to share your life moment to moment,” said Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft.
The KIN ONE is a small, portrait-oriented QWERTY slider, which is designed to be operated with one hand if need be. The KIN TWO features landscape orientation and a commensurately larger keyboard. The KIN TWO also has more memory, an 8 megapixel camera to the KIN ONE’s 5 megapixel and the ability to record HD video.
The KIN series was created specifically to service social media, and does so by combining feeds from Facebook, Myspace and Twitter automatically. Users can additionally specify their favorite friends, pushing them to the top of the priority list when the phone displays new updates.
The KIN also offers a way to add videos, photos, texts, web pages, location and status updates to any feed, or all of them at once, by dragging them to a place on the phone called the “Spot.” Further, everything on the phone can be viewed on a web browser through the cloud. Finally, the KIN will also function as a Zune, allowing users to access their music, videos, radio and more.
A release date and pricing information for the new phones were unavailable at press time.
KIN ONE
- Display: 2.6″, 320×240 capactivie LCD
- CPU: N/A
- RAM: 256MB
- ROM: N/A
- Battery: 1240 mAh
- Storage: 4GB (Onboard)
- Camera: 5MP (Auto-focus, anti-shake and LED flash)
- Radio: EV-DO Rev. A
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0, 802.11b/g
- Other: A-GPS, FM radio, Accelerometer
KIN TWO
- Display: 3.4″, 480×320 capactive LCD
- CPU: N/A
- RAM: 256MB
- ROM: N/A
- Battery: 1240 mAh
- Storage: 8GB (Onboard)
- Camera: 8MP (Auto-focus, anti-shake and LED flash)
- Radio: EV-DO Rev. A
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0, 802.11b/g
- Other: A-GPS, FM radio, Accelerometer
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