Detailed KIN One and KIN Two review

PhoneArena have published their usual professional and detailed review, this time of the Microsoft KIN One and KIN Two.

Their findings are on occasion in sharp contrast with other reviews such as Engadget’s, for example they found the sound quality quite good, they keyboard on the KIN One pretty good and and report the experience largely smooth.

In other areas they pretty much agree however, complaining of the awkward position of the shutter button, poor browser experience and lack of 3rd party apps, meaning there is no way to access Youtube for example, and not even a calculator is present.

They conclude:

Conclusion: 
If there is anything going for KIN, it has to be its tight integration of social networking that envelops users to take notice of its keen strengths in that department. First of all, the KIN ONE is quite a compelling piece of hardware which can be attributed to its hockey puck looks, but we feel it is more suitable for sending a plethora of messages thanks to its good QWERTY keyboard. Conversely the KIN TWO is the better device for those who’d prefer some more impressive specs, but lacks a decent QWERTY to get the task of sending messages. Even though there are faint similarities between KIN and Windows Phone 7, the question that remains unanswered is why would someone go with this over the all encompassing features of Microsoft’s next platform? Sure it does a swell job in quickly getting you in contact with the people you care about the most by easily sharing a myriad of content with them, but its lack of depth in being a well balanced platform makes it stand below some of its feature phone counterparts – specifically the lack of organizer functions, YouTube, IM, and some generic apps. Although it would be a nightmare for Microsoft to just stop the experience now and how it currently stands, we bet that in time there will be additional updates to the KIN platform to make it stand toe-to-toe with some of the elites out there. Moreover, it’s pricing plays a pivotal role in how it’ll become adopted by consumers. Despite the fact that both phones are priced below $100, it makes it one hard purchase to consider with the knowledge of some pretty decent smartphones encroaching on its turf. Having in mind you’ll have to pay for a monthly data package of at least $30, we believe that there are better alternatives to the KINs right now, such as the cheaper Palm Pre and Pixi, which are smartphones and have much, much greater functionality. And if you don’t mind adding some more cash to your initial purchase, we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend you getting the Android 2.1-powered HTC Droid Incredible or Motorola DROID, which are incomparably better devices. However, if smartphones are not your cup of tea today and you only want to access Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, the KIN ONE and TWO will do the job by  providing a constant feed to your favorite accounts – which is basically what they are all about.

They ultimately score the handsets a collective 7/10.

Read their full review here.