Sharp Kin One

“And that about sums it up -- there are much better choices for much less money on the market, and Microsoft hasn't demonstrated to us why you would choose this phone over those. You could argue that the 720p video recording is a hook, but our results weren't that outstanding, and we don't know anyone who needs HD video on a phone so desperately that they're willing to overlook all of these faults. In the end, we're left with two orphan devices -- phones that feel like they should have been killed before they made it to market, but somehow slipped through. It's clear to us from conversations we've had with Microsoft that there are people at the company with good ideas about what phones should and shouldn't do, but we don't feel the Kin is representative of those ideas. The execution (or lack thereof) on these products makes us legitimately concerned about what the company will do with Windows Phone 7. We can only hope that the similarities between those devices and the Kin handsets don't stretch much further than the Windows Phone label, because in our estimation, Kin is one side of the family that needs to be disowned... quickly.”

“The KIN series of phones, which is currently made up of the KIN ONE and the KIN TWO, are Microsoft's attempt at building a feature phone platform that offers many of the capabilities of a smartphone, without all of the complications. The KIN ONE is the cheaper of the two KIN devices that Verizon Wireless is offering, and it features a very compact form factor, a full QWERTY keyboard, and a capacitive touchscreen display. The device was manufactured for Microsoft by Sharp, the company that made most of the popular Sidekick devices. The KIN ONE is a very fun, engaging device to use. It has a new user interface that is unlike any you've seen on a shipping phone, and, while different, it makes sense once you learn to use it (Palm's webOS had this same issue). I am very fond of it.”