Both handsets have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and the good news is that it’s a decent typing experience. Both use a capacitive, plastic touchscreen display, and the Kin One has a 5-megapixel camera and the Kin Two an 8-megapixel camera; each has an LED flash. Microsoft’s new homescreen is called Loop, and uses swipe-gestures for navigation; at the bottom of the screen there’s the Kin Spot to which you can drag content – such as images – to instantly share them. The different panes on Loop vary according to who you contact most often, who you tell the Kin phones you’re most interested in, and the media you access the most.

The Kin One has 4GB of storage while the Kin Two gets 8GB; that’s your lot, too, since there’s no memory card slot, though Microsoft do back up all photos, videos and messages in the cloud. Social networking support includes content sharing with MySpace, Facebook, Windows Live and Twitter, though at present you can’t upload photos or video to Twitter, and there’s no instant messaging client. There’s also a very definite differentiation between the Kin range and Windows Phone 7, down to basic functionalities like the Kin handsets having no calendar app or app store.

As for Zune, there’ll be Zune video and music support – including optional Zune Pass subscriptions – but no games, and there’s a PC management app that’ll be used to control content together with a basic Mac side-loading app.  The Kin One has a mono speaker while the Kin Two gets stereo speakers, and of course both have a 3.5mm headphone jack together with an FM radio.

Microsoft haven’t confirmed what sort of battery life we can expect from the two handsets, but we’re guessing with regular media sharing over 3G you’ll be looking at a daily recharge.  Expect to see the Kin One and Kin Two arrive on Verizon in May 2010, while a Vodafone Europe launch in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom is expected this fall.  No word on pricing as yet.

Press Release:

Microsoft Ushers in the Next Generation of the Social Phone With KIN, a New Windows Phone

Microsoft, Sharp, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone unveil KIN, a new Windows Phone designed for broadcasting and sharing everyday moments.

REDMOND, Wash. — April 12, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. today announced KIN, a new Windows® Phone designed specifically for people who are actively navigating their social lives. Brought to life through partnerships with Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and Sharp Corporation, KIN is designed to be the ultimate social experience that blends the phone, online services and the PC with breakthrough new experiences called the Loop, Spot and Studio. KIN will be exclusively available from Verizon Wireless in the U.S. beginning in May and from Vodafone this autumn in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

KIN is a new social experience from Microsoft Corp. that combines the phone, online services and the PC.
Click for larger version
“Working closely with our partners, we saw an opportunity to design a mobile experience just for this social generation — a phone that makes it easy to share your life moment to moment,” said Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. “We built KIN for people who live to be connected, share, express and relate to their friends and family. This social generation wants and needs more from their phone. KIN is the one place to get the stuff you care about to the people you care about most.”

A New Kind of Social Phone

With KIN, social networking is built into the fabric of the phone. KIN has a fun, simple interface, which is designed to help people publish the magazine of their life by making the people and stuff they love the focus rather than menus and icons. The unique hardware design was developed in partnership with Sharp to create a new kind of social phone. There are two models called KIN ONE and KIN TWO. Both phones feature a touch screen and slide-out keyboard. ONE is small and compact, making it a perfect fit for a pocket and to operate with one hand. TWO has a larger screen and keyboard, in addition to more memory, a higher resolution camera, and the ability to record high-definition video. The 5 and 8 megapixel cameras in ONE and TWO, respectively, are designed for use in low light with image stabilization and a bright LumiLED flash.

The New Way to Share

The home screen of the phone is called the KIN Loop, which is always up to date and always on, showing all the things happening in someone’s social world. KIN automatically brings together feeds from leading Microsoft and third-party services such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter all in one place, making it easier to stay connected. Customers can also select their favorite people, and KIN will automatically prioritize their status updates, messages, feeds and photos. Another unique feature, the KIN Spot is a new way for people to share what’s going on in their world. It lets them focus first on the people and stuff they want to share rather than the specific application they want to use. Videos, photos, text messages, Web pages, location and status updates are shared by simply dragging them to a single place on the phone called the Spot. Once all the people and content are in the Spot to share, the consumer can choose how to share, and start broadcasting.

Your Phone, on the Web

KIN Studio is your phone online. Almost everything created on the phone is available in the cloud from any Web browser. Photos and videos are freed from the confines of the phone and presented in an online visual timeline so they are easy to view and share. The KIN Studio automatically backs up texts, call history, photos, videos and contacts, and populates a personalized digital journal so it’s easy to go back in time to relive a crazy weekend or recent birthday. And the KIN Studio gives customers tons of storage to keep all those photos, videos, contacts and texts so they’ll never run out of space on their phone and lose a memory.

Music and More

KIN will be the first Windows Phone to feature a Zune experience — including music, video, FM radio and podcast playback. With a Zune Pass subscription, customers using Zune software on their PC can listen to millions of songs from Zune Marketplace on their KIN while on the go, or load their personal collection. KIN also has other features customers want in a phone including a rich browser with the ability to share pieces of the Web, local and Web search by Bing, and an RSS feed reader to pull down information on people and stories from the Web.

As well as the two Microsoft handsets themselves there are also various cases and other accessories listed.  We’re expecting two devices – hitherto known as Pure and Turtle – from the company today, each with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a focus on mobile social networking.

The LG device, however, is listed as the LG VS740, spotted in the wild last week.  Running Android, final specifications are unclear; there’s some talk that the phone is the LG Aloha, with WiFi b/g/n, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 5-megapixel camera and 720p HD playback functionality.

Manufactured by Sharp, the handsets are in effect Microsoft’s new Sidekick alternative, created using the team acquired when they bought Danger.  Unlike Windows Phone 7 it seems there’s a more featurephone-slant than smartphone functionality, but we’ll have to wait and see exactly how Microsoft position them at the event later today in order to be sure.

The underlying OS is Windows CE but heavily skinned, and there’s a Zune HD style app store and other connected services.  Both devices – under different titles from their current codenames – are expected to arrive on Verizon later this quarter, in advance of a GSM launch at some point along the line.

[via Gizmodo]

Now, it’s worth remembering that BGR weren’t able to corroborate the list of device, but it certainly makes sense given what we’ve heard rumored about the carrier in recent months.  We should know more about the two Project Pink handsets after Microsoft’s event on April 12th.

Update: Apparently the devices will also get an international launch – in their GSM formats – with carrier Vodafone.

Larger images after the cut

According to Engadget’s sources, the Pink phones will indeed be targeted at a more youthful market than Windows Phone 7.  The promotional campaign will center on a “truly madly deeply” slogan, presumably leaning on the idea that the entry-level smartphones will become the essential lynchpin of your social life.

As for what we already know about the two devices, beyond that there will – eventually – be both CDMA and GSM models, and that the Pure has a 480 x 320 display while the Turtle has a 320 x 240 screen, it’s all a bit of a mystery.  Social networking seems to be heavily integrated – along with Zune HD style media functionality – so it seems very likely that these are the devices Microsoft hope will grab the attention of Sidekick lovers.

It also confirms that the Turtle has a 320 x 240 display, and that there are alternative codenames – Pride and Lion – for the Turtle and Pure CDMA versions respectively.  There’s also what’s believed to be a social networking center, called The Loop, and the whole thing is based on Windows CE albeit heavily hidden with a distinctive UI that borrows from the Zune and Windows Phone 7.  Says the source of the firmware leak:

“Everything is programed in .NET a lot like 7 is. It does not say it inside the files where I have seen, but It is coded in XAMl and is in the structure that CE 7 is supposed to be structured, it is my belief that it will be based off CE 7, and it will have a lot of tie in to Windows Live as well.”

Gizmodo’s tipster reports that the device was “intuitive, ‘better than Android,’ and decorated with Windows Phone 7-style animations throughout,” though that’s based on a few seconds use.  They also saw an app store, though currently empty of titles.  Meanwhile over at Twitter, user Conflipper apparently also has some firmware access of their own, and has released a few shots of the UI – including the dialer and PIN screen – together with a photo from the Pure’s camera.

No release date has been leaked for the Pure, but the assumption is that it’ll land at around the same time as the Turtle, at the end of April 2010.  Microsoft were tipped to be preparing the Pink platform as a replacement to the Sidekick, and it certainly looks like that’s what these devices are turning out to be: social networking-heavy media phones with an emphasis on usability rather than the sort of enterprise functionality you’d get on Windows Phone 7.

[via Windows-Phone]

[Update: New tipsters have apparently confirmed that both the Turtle and the Pure (aka the Sharp PB10ZU and the PB20ZU) will be available, and are likely to launch in late April 2010.  The production names are still not finalized, but the UI shares some of Windows Phone 7's appearance along with "some sort of UI skin/more of a social-networking edge".]

Gizmodo are only sharing one tiny graphic – the one you see above – because their hoard apparently came from someone working with Microsoft and they want to protect their identity.  Still, they’re asking us to believe that the rest is legitimate even if we can’t see it; the documents are supposedly only days old, and discuss the launch as if it’s imminent.

The smartphone runs an OS other than Windows Phone 7 but also seems to include some sort of app platform; it’s unclear what the basis of that platform might be.  There are also no specifications of the Turtle device, nor any indication of what its commercial name might be.  Still, if the timescales they’re talking about pan out, we shouldn’t have too long to wait.

Meanwhile further entries referred to the ability to “View and manage pictures and videos taken with your phone at the Studio”, with users able to sign up as “Studio members”.  The suggestion is that this could be Microsoft’s new media upload service, enabling content produced on the handset to be shared via a web gallery.

It’s not the first cellular tidbit discovered in the Zune software recently; earlier this week references to what could link the PMP’s Zune Pass subscription-based music download service with a mobile phone were discovered in version 4.2.202.0 of the firmware.  Microsoft have continued to deny any intentions of producing a Zune phone, however recently collated Twitter messages seemingly tip a surprise consumer-focused announcement at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in a little over a week’s time.

[via Engadget]

Separate from the oft-speculated Zune phone, Microsoft’s consumer handset(s) would represent the next stage of Sidekick-style devices, and stem from the company’s acquisition of Danger.  Windows Mobile 7 handsets are expected to go on sale before the end of 2010, which probably puts whatever “Pink” phones Microsoft have in mind in the fourth-quarter.

While Microsoft have declined to comment on either WM7 or a consumer device range at MWC 2010, they have conceded that they’ll be running programming seminars at MIX 10 in March.  These will help developers get up to speed with the next major iteration of Windows Mobile, which promises to mark a reasonably significant break with earlier releases.

While existing Sidekick phones – made by Danger, a company Microsoft bought and took over in recent years – have Twitter access, tweets from those handsets are listed as “from Sidekick”.  The tweets have come from numerous accounts, are often tagged #tmd or #tmdp, and at least one suggests that this is a separate project from the Windows Mobile 7 team.

One explanation could be that Microsoft’s much-rumored Pink project is finally culminating in some sort of hardware announcement.  Last we heard, a disgruntled insider was predicting mismanagement would see Pink scuppered, but that predated these Twitter messages.

According to the unnamed source, the handset design leaks were likely from Microsoft themselves in an attempt to drive enthusiasm for the Pink project.  However the news that Sharp has been the Pink team’s sole hardware partner is expected to sour Microsoft’s relationship with Windows Mobile device manufacturers such as HTC; Palm and Motorola have already dropped out of developing new Windows Phones.  Similarly, Verizon are expected to be angry with their being named as a potential Pink carrier, since this could impact their CDMA iPhone, webOS and RIM plans.  The source also quotes a whopping 25-percent Windows Mobile Verizon return rate for dissatisfaction.

T-Mobile are another carrier tipped to be affected, as they work closely with the Danger team and Sharp on the Sidekick.:

“I don’t know exactly what Microsoft has been telling them, but they have no doubt realized that they’ve been cut out of this deal in favor of their largest competitor. What’s worse is that apparently Microsoft has been lying to them this whole time about the amount of resources that they’ve been putting behind Sidekick development and support (in reality, it was cut down to a handful of people in Palo Alto managing some contractors in Romania, Ukraine, etc.)”

The source fingers Roz Ho, head of Premium Mobile Experiences (aka the lead in the Pink project), together with Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie as most responsible for the ongoing disaster.  Windows Mobile and the Zune teams have already been duplicating each others’ work as the projects have been kept segregated; now it’s transpired that the Pink team have been doing the same, and not only that but potentially cannibalizing elements of both (but particularly the Windows Phone platform).  It makes for an interesting read – Apple Insider also chart the development of the various mobile platforms, including Android and iPhone – together with a worrying diagnosis for Microsoft’s mobile outlook.

The two devices – and indeed the Pink project as a whole – are still unconfirmed by Microsoft themselves, but we’ve heard sporadic rumors and leaks about their development.  While full specifications are unknown, there has been talk of the handsets having access to Zune-style media services, potentially including ZunePass music subscriptions, as well as to an app store.

That app store could be an offshoot of the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, as the Turtle and Pure are said to be based on Windows Mobile 7.  While there’s no release date among the leak, the degree to which the two phones “branding and identity” has been polished points to Microsoft being far along in their development cycle.  A launch in early 2010 has been mentioned, but since Windows 7 won’t follow on until late in the year, we don’t expect to see the phones on shelves at the same time.

Foley, meanwhile, maintains that the Pink handset(s) are based on Windows Mobile 7, and as such won’t be ready for launch until the end of 2010.  While Microsoft themselves still aren’t confirming the existence of Pink, she points to at least one development lead who has mentioned he is working on the project in his Linked In profile.  The Pink devices would have access to the new Zune media download store, together with Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

As for the tablet, 9to5Mac don’t have much information – only that it was in late prototype stage – but Foley’s sources say it’s now being helmed by “Alchemy Ventures” with most likely Chief Experience Officer J Allard taking the lead.  Microsoft were previously tipped to be planning a consumer tablet called Oahu, and indeed Alchemy Ventures is said to involve support from at least one member of Microsoft’s Surface team.  Meanwhile the Seattle company is waiting to see what tablet device Apple announce in early 2010 before going public, apparently.

Says Foley, this is all part of Microsoft’s new “chassis” model, where the company puts out detailed specifications on a hardware device they want to co-brand and manufacturers bid to produce it.  Their aim, she claims, is to move toward subscription-based revenue, such as the ZunePass unlimited download package that so impressed us in our recent Zune HD review.

[via Incremental Blogger]

According to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, Pink will be built on top of the Windows Mobile 7 core but be different in UI appearance from any other smartphone using the platform.  Microsoft have apparently tasked the Danger team that it acquired in 2008 to develop the device, which will supposedly be built by just one manufacturer.

While sources differ on who that manufacturer might be, both Sharp and Motorola have been tipped; each have worked with Danger before on the Sidekick.  That certainly fits in with earlier rumors that the Pink device would blend consumer functionality from the Zune and the Sidekick for an audience different from traditional Windows Mobile buyers.