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Kin One hands-on (photos)

CNET gets a hands-on look at the Kin One from Microsoft.

Bonnie Cha
Bonnie Cha was a former chief correspondent for CNET Crave, covering every kind of tech toy imaginable (with a special obsession for robots and Star Wars-related stuff). When she's not scoping out stories, you can find her checking out live music or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California.
Bonnie Cha
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1 of 10 James Martin/CNET

Kindred spirits

Code-named the Pure and Turtle, Microsoft finally unveiled Project Pink and introduced the Kin One and Kin Two. Both phones place a heavy emphasis on social networking and are targeted toward a younger audience.
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2 of 10 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Kin One

Of the two devices, the Kin One is the lower-end model. It features a QVGA capacitive touch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, and 4GB of internal memory, whereas the Kin Two has an HVGA touch screen, an 8-megapixel camera, and 8GB of storage capacity.
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3 of 10 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Slider design

The Kin One also has the more interesting design, in our opinion. In its closed state, it has more of a squarish shape but with rounded edges and is quite compact, fitting nicely in the palm of your hand. You can then slide it open to reveal the full QWERTY keyboard.
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4 of 10 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Keyboard

Despite the phone's small size, the keyboard was actually pretty easy to use and didn't feel to cramped. The buttons have a nice oval shape to them with a decent amount of spacing between them. They're also raised above the phone's surface, so we found it pretty easy to type on.
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5 of 10 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Side profile

Here is a profile shot of the right side of the phone in its opened state.
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6 of 10 James Martin/CNET

Camera

As we mentioned earlier, the Kin One is equipped with a 5-megapixel camera as well as a flash. It can also shoot video in standard definition. With the Kin phones, all photos are automatically geotagged and can be mapped via Bing Maps.
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7 of 10 James Martin/CNET

Top view

On top, you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack.
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8 of 10 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Web browser

The Kin's browser is based on the one found on Windows Mobile 6.5 devices but adds pinch-to-zoom capabilities, among other things. Unfortunately, there is no Flash support.
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9 of 10 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Zune Pass

The Kin devices will be the first Windows phones to ship with Zune. The best part of this news, however, is that you get Zune Pass support so you can stream music over a 3G connection.
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10 of 10 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Packaging

Even the packaging for the Kin One and Two are pretty interesting. The phones will ship in these canisters and will include product documentation as well as other accessories, we presume.

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