Microsoft reveals Kin phones for social networking teens

Microsoft officially revealed its much rumoured range of consumer level phones at a press conference in San Francisco yesterday.

Designed for social networking fiends who want to keep close tabs on their pals, the two announced mobiles, Kin 1 and Kin 2, are designed to pull your Facebook updates, emails, text messages, and news feeds onto one simple and accessible interface.

The main home screen is called 'Loop' and promises to be a real-time stream of your social updates. Swipe left to reveal quick access to functionality like the camera, web browser and email, or swipe right to find a list of your favourite people - the buddies that Loop will monitor for updates and new status messages.

The phone series' emphasis is on social connectivity. When you're browsing the internet or your gallery of photos and videos, you can drag interesting media to the 'Spot', a little circle that hangs out a the bottom of the Kin's interface. Then drag in the friends you want to share the content with to send it over SMS or email.

Photos and videos are automatically geo-tagged and uploaded to Microsoft's cloud-based 'Kin Studio' server. You can then check your photos and videos from any web browser, easily share them amongst friends and save space.

Previously referred to as the Turtle and Pure, both announced handsets hide away full qwerty keyboards underneath their touch screens.

The smaller handset, designed to fit inside your palm, is called the Kin 1. It features a 5-megapixel camera with flash for SD video, hooks up to the Zune music store and holds 4GB of photos and videos. It's also got a capacitive touchscreen, an FM radio, and Bluetooth to boot.

The larger handset is slightly higher end, featuring all of the Kin 2's bullet points but with a bigger screen, 8GB of storage, and an 8-megapixel camera capable of shooting video in 720p HD resolution.

The Kin 1 and Kin 2 phones are a departure from the Windows Phone 7 smartphone operating system that Microsoft will be releasing later this year. In fact, the Kin handsets don't even have a calendar, let alone an app store.

Microsoft kept pretty mute about the full functionality of the device, but right now it doesn't seem as if gaming is on the Kin's agenda.

Instead, the Kin phones share the same foundation as the Zune HD. Don't expect 3D gaming any time soon, though. Kin product manager Derek Snyder told Engadget that a key goal was to make sure the phones could go an entire weekend without a charge. Probably for live tweeting indie gigs and writing a Facebook status update about an 'awesome kegger at Phil's.'

The Kin is out in the US this May.