Verizon ships leftover Kins back to Redmond amid poor sales

Matthew DeCarlo

Posts: 5,271   +104
Staff

It's official: the Kin phones are dead. Disappointed by an abysmal performance, Verizon has ceased sales of the social networking devices, pulling both from its site and shipping the remaining supply back to Redmond. The carrier plans to continue selling Kin accessories for now, and Microsoft will run the servers required to keep the phones in service. Big Red's move comes only weeks after Microsoft dropped the handsets and disbanded the Kin development team.


Announced in April, the Kin One and Kin Two waltzed straight out of a Dr. Seuss story giving teen hipsters social-centric mobile features without all the extras of full-fledge smartphones. Unfortunately, that market proved to be non-existent, with Microsoft rumored to have sold less than 10,000 units. Besides the limited audience, the phones were priced too closely to more capable devices – not to mention the awkward and creepy advertising campaign.

If you're one of the handful who purchased a Kin, what are your thoughts on the device? Will you continue to use it?

Permalink to story.

 
The devices were to ugly. In this day and age your phone is part of your look, just as much as the clothes you wear and whatever else you have on.

To me it seems really hard to make an ugly phone since making just a rectangular flat phone like the iphone and many others with this shape fit it just fine.
 
Guest said:
The devices were to ugly. In this day and age your phone is part of your look, just as much as the clothes you wear and whatever else you have on.

To me it seems really hard to make an ugly phone since making just a rectangular flat phone like the iphone and many others with this shape fit it just fine.

I desperately hope I never fall to a level that you find yourself at... its a part of your look? Its an f'ing electronic device, if thats what you need to socialize its beyond sad.

Also, this phone simply proved that any loser who depends on "social" networking 24/7 already had a computer and sat in front of it all day, they didn't need a phone to pull it off.
 
Back