KIN – New Windows Phone

Today at a press conference in the United States Microsoft have unveiled a new generation of social phone.

The KIN 1 and KIN 2 (Yes I know they are great names!) are targeting an audience that have social media as their priority. KIN is taken from the term ‘Kindred Spirit’ and was termed ‘a phone to navigate your social life’.

I would imagine we will get an official press release soon and most likely some video footage of the two devices in action but in the meantime I will give you a very brief summary.

The idea of KIN is to make social networking easy. Whether its Facebook, Twitter or MySpace we all have three sorts of friends.

The first type are our proper friends that we see regularly and speak to daily.

The second group are friends that maybe you went to school with but don’t really see now.

And the third group of friends are the famous folk we follow, such as rock stars or actors.

KIN will integrate all your social media apps and bring you updates from all your friends but cleverly it will recognise your best friends (group one) and always give them priority. For example: if you are going to send a photo to your friends then your favourite friends will appear first in a list to send the image too.

Sending photos and videos could not be easier. At the bottom of the screen you have a kin spot. Just drag photos, videos or web pages into the KIN spot to share with friends. Simple pimple!

The goodness doesn’t stop there. For the first time in a phone are Zune services. Zune is popular in the States but will be new here in the UK. Its a nice alternative to iTunes. I speak from experience as I have a Zune HD.

The cameras on both devices sound reasonable too. One with an 5mp and the other with an 8mp.  The KIN 2 will also be capable of video recording in 720P HD. Nice.

KIN Studio is the online software to manage your media on the desktop. The phones will automatically back up your photos and video, producing online albums and even a timeline so you can view photos from a certain day or week.

As far as I am aware both devices have been made by Sharp and Microsoft have teamed up with Verizon in the States and Vodafone over here. The KIN devices should start rolling out next month so not long to wait.

I am pleasantly surprised with today’s announcement. Although I don’t think the KIN is the phone for me I can see it having a place in the market, in particular with the youngsters. It will be interesting to see prices and plans from Vodafone in the future.

When we have more news we will let you have it. Stay tuned. (DJ speak!)

Posted by: James