Microsoft KIN phone lacks key features

Microsoft revealed two new phones, the KIN ONE and KIN TWO, aimed at the social networking savvy people on Tuesday. The product targets the younger youth audience who seem to be connected with their friends 24/7.

The KIN phone helps to keep users constantly connected by integrating social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. That makes sense. Today's youth seem to be addicted to these websites.

This may be a good approach to selling phones. The Nielsen Company reported that the average time a person spends on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter has soared 82% in the last year. Microsoft feels the need to grab this opportunity.

Features of the KIN include:

• A compact sliding QWERTY keyboard
• A touch screen
• Mono speakers for KIN ONE and Stereo speakers for KIN TWO
• Digital camera with LED flash: 5MP camera (KIN ONE), 8MP camera (KIN TWO)
• Lots of memory: 4GB memory (KIN ONE), 8GB memory (KIN TWO)
• Media player powered by Zune

However, the KIN lacks many features that teens love, according the Washington Post and eWeek.

• No insant messaging - There is no native IM client on the KIN. For a phone aimed at the youth market, messaging integration seems to be a must. The QWERTY keyboard just screams messaging.
• No calendar application - Being a social phone, there should be a way to share your events using a social calendar. If the KIN's goal is to connect people, there should be a calendar.
• No games - Gammabit frowns upon this non-feature. No solitaire, hearts or minesweeper. No games. Period.
• No memory expansion - There is no memory card slot present. The KIN ONE is stuck with 4GB and the KIN TWO, 8GB.
• No Flash support - This may be one of the reasons why there are no games. This also means no YouTube. It also doesn't support Microsoft's Silverlight .
• No Twitter uploads - The phone does not support uploading video or pictures to Twitter.
• No app store - So naturally, no 3rd party apps. People love to customize. There are apps for the iPhone and extensions for Firefox, but no reports of an app store for the KIN.

The two KIN phones will be set for release in May 2010 for the US on Verizon Wireless and in autumn for Europe.

D.Wu