Some early reviews are in on Microsoft’s new feature phones, the Kin One and Kin Two, and they’re not good! PhoneScoop and Engadget have put up scathing reviews of the Kin Phones, saying the “execution falls far, far short of what others have been able to accomplish” and that “Kin is one side of the family that needs to be disowned… quickly.
Both reviews talk about mediocre hardware – which was pretty expected – and less-than-satisfactory UI experiences. The PhoneScoop review was less harsh than the Engadget review:
“While using the One and Two we found ourselves consistently confused or surprised by how many bad little interface problems there are. Not only does the phone make it hard to do simple tasks — and not only are the social networking features poorly implemented — but the handsets are often sluggish, hiccupy, and downright crash-prone. We were told by the devices on more than one occasion that we needed to restart (while performing basic tasks), and often it would just throw us a blank screen while we waited for the device to come back from whatever tragic internal situation was occurring. It would be wonderful to say more good about the phone’s UI — but we just can’t.”
One positive thing that seems to come out of these Kin reviews is the Kin Studio, which syncs your phone activities (texts, calls, emails, pictures, videos, RSS, contacts, etc) with your online account. I previously speculated that this could be the future of MyPhone, but we’ll have to wait and see I guess.
One thing that comes across in both reviews and another piece over at WindowsPhoneThoughts is that Microsoft and Verizon have missed the mark on pricing. The Kin One and Kin Two are designed to be the new low-end feature phones and should have been free and $50, respectively. Not only are the devices $49 and $99 (after rebates), but Verizon is insisting on a minimum voice plan of $39.99 per month and both phones require a smartphone data plan at $29.99 per month – that’s $70 per month for a dumb phone!
Sorry, Microsoft, this isn’t looking good!
