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Kin TwoM: Review, FAQ, Q&A, troubleshooting, etc.

fisharefriends

I bought the kin twom 3 days ago. We qualified for the new every 2 free phone, contract renewal deal, so i've been looking around for a few weeks, doing my research on forums here and there. So, i already knew most of the quirks by the time i bought it. To those who have made detailed reviews, thank you. It helped me decide whether to buy this phone or not. So to contribute back and perhaps help others searching for answers to the Kin twom, I am making a review/FAQ/Q&A to hopefully help answer questions, add my own insight, as well as information that i've found from scouring this and other forums. I also have a few questions of my own that i will ask. It will cover many questions that i have seen asked around, questions i had in mind before i bought the phone, as well as questions and observations i now have.

***and i am hoping somewhere a verizon/microsoft rep is reading this and passes the message along..that this is one of the best feature phones out there, all it needs a a few minor firmware/software fixes, and really is as close to the 'perfect' feature phone that i and many others have been looking for***

This is a very long review, so I will post it in separate posts (apologies for the double.. 10x post).

Contents:
**1 Overview, pro's and cons
**2 Physical quality
**3 Wifi
**4 Phone: calls, messaging, etc
**5 Camera
**6 Zune
**7 Secondary apps: alarm, calculator, calendar
**8 Cases

**9 Sensors

**10 Questions

Background: my old phone was a razr v3m, back to the stone ages. It was a free phone when i bought it, and i was looking for a free phone upon upgrade too. This phone is $50, but for a one-time charge, that was within budget for me. I also used the new every 2 $100 towards purchase offer to get it free. That being said, this could be why i love this phone, because in nearly every way, it was a HUGE improvement. The type of things i was looking for in a phone: good call quality, qwerty keyboard,

good camera. I mainly use my phone..as a phone. Call, text, and because i don't carry a camera around with me,

having an 8 mp with me and HD video was a huge bonus. I don't mind touchscreens, as long as it has a separate keyboard with it (i can't stand just having a touch keyboard, because you can't really do anything unless you are looking at it, and even then, you can miss keys). Looking online and finding this phone and that it had the great camera and full keyboard as a feature phone (no data) at a low cost, i was instantly drawn towards it.

Comments

fisharefriends

**1. First things first, this is a feature phone, not a smartphone. There are no apps. They call their programs 'apps', but they are really just every phone applications, like phone, calculator, messages, browser, etc. You can imagine why this phone failed its first time through as the kin twom, being a smartphone. It would make just about the worst smartphone out there. I also was not looking for the social networking type phone that this was originally marketed as. This phone is for people who DON'T want data plans, don't want to pay extra. It is currently being sold for $50 with a contract renewal/new contract, and $220 without a contract. The kin onem is a smaller version of the kin twom, if that is the form factor you are looking for, and that is currently listed as $20 w/ a 2 year contract, and $120 contract-free. They are very similar phones, from what i know, they have identical user interfaces and software.

Here are the user manuals for the two phones:
Kin Onem: http://cache.vzw.com/multimedia/mim/kin_two_m/kintwo_m.pdf
Kin Twom: http://cache.vzw.com/multimedia/mim/kin_one_m/kinone_m.pdf

I read this even before i bought the phone, but that could be because i am pretty picky when it comes to buying new products, especially knowing i want it to last at least 2 years. It would be a good idea to read this, although it is understandable if 150 pages isn't your definition of light reading (although this review is pretty long itself..)

Here is also a link to a very helpful review video of the Kin twom (thanks to ertrox342, fantastic job!), you can see many of the features here. *note: for blocking data other than airplane mode, read further down my review*
Part 1
Part 2
Response to comments

off the top of my head, i will list pro's and cons of the phone (some of which will be covered in further detail below). Many of the cons have been listed all over these and other forums and are more bugs than just cons of the phone, but i will list them anyways.

***Pros:***
*mostly deals with the functionality of the phone. In my opinion, it far exceeds my expectations (being a feature phone, low budget and all)

-full qwerty keyboard: lots of spacing between keys, space on its own line, good for bigger hands, etc. (although i've heard people complaining theres too much room between keys..i don't see how you can have too much room, in my opinion thats probably because they're used to a squished, shrunk keyboard from a previous phone)

-8 MP camera, 720p HD video, with flash, some lighting settings, and auto-focus (well beyond what i expect from a phone). No, the flash does not work with the video, nor can you use it as a flashlight, which is a little bit of a downside, but not unbearable. it does do have a burst setting, where it takes 3 successive pictures, good for motion, or where you need to capture a photo at the right time (think..the classic jump in the air).

-great capacitive touchscreen: very responsive, registers well, very comparable to apple's iPhone, iTouch response. Has pinch to zoom, double tap, 2 finger tap, scroll features.

-Wifi. Yes, internet without a data plan. the browser is based off IE6 (from what i've read), it opens most pages, plays certain videos (youtube is the main one, microsoft must have used a custom plugin to get videos working), really what you expect from a phone.

-Zune player. along with wifi, these are all extra bonuses i really didn't expect on a low-budget feature phone. although i am used to apple's itunes, it is a full player on-board the phone, it just takes getting used to the interface (unless you already own a zune)

-FM radio. again, a bonus. Is within the zune player, and now i can listen to radio, or mainly for me, sports games, etc. One downside though, will be mentioned later (cons, **6)

-3.5 mm headjack: standard size, i don't like it when phones decide to throw on a 2.5 mm headjack, although they both are 'standard', 3.5 is much more common, and saves you a trip down to radioshack and some $$ to buy an adapter, or new headphones.

-good call quality, speakerphone works well, etc

-Great battery life: that could be from what i am used to, my old phone needed daily charging, would often go low-battery in 3/4 a day, and it always had a low-battery beep that could not be silenced without silencing the entire device. It has lasted for 2 days now though, and that has been under pretty heavy use from me testing the new phone.

-threaded messages: again, the main thing i use a phone for is calling and texting. The messages are sorted by contact, you CAN send more than 160 characters per message (it auto-divides them into individual messages), even to non-verizon customers. That was one of hte most annoying things about my old phone, was once you get to 160 characters (to non-verizon customers..but who really keeps track of who is verizon and who isn't), you had to send and start writing a new message. And yes, you CAN send/recieve MMS simultaneously to having a functioning Wifi (the 'right' way to block data, explained later, **3)

-Alarm, calendar, calculator: one more thing i generally use my phone for..alarms and the calendar.the original kin didn't have a calendar/calculator, but microsoft did add these to the kin onem/twom models.

-auto-brightness: brilliant. it works wonders for the battery life, and it adjusts it to a great level when needed. When it is dark..not very bright. when you're outside, brighter screen so you can see it. however, the sensor on the phone can sometimes be covered up by your hand, which makes the screen darker for the setting you are in, which might be what is happening to those who say the auto-bright doesn't work well. I haven't found the exact sensor location yet, but i believe it is the little dot by the earpiece.

***Cons:***

This list is much bigger..but that does not mean that the cons exceed the pro's. The pro's are actual functionalities of the phone, the con's are minor quirks here and there, they can be bothersome, but not crippling. For most part, they are listed from most annoying to least. I will list as many con's as i have seen mentioned around the forums, as well as some of my own, so you can judge the phone for yourself. They don't all necessarily bother me.

-volume buttons: they do not lock when you lock the phone. That is a sign of poor software engineering..but its bearable (lock..doesn't that mean lock everything, except unlock?). I ordered a case however, that hopefully will make the volume buttons a lot harder to accidentally push. I think what they had in mind was being able to change the volume while listening to music, but if it is locked, then it should be fully locked..they didn't get this one right. One thing about the phone, however, it seems to have sensors on it, whether infared, light, or just pressure/touch sensors, where the actual buttons don't register unless it senses it is 'being held'. Not quite sure how it works, but will discuss later (**9)

-alarms do not have vibrate only: even if your phone is set on vibrate, there is no vibrate. i do have work-arounds, though, that will be discussed later (cons, **7)

-messaging: only threaded messages. cannot just sort by time, with all contacts integrated. Also, no one has figured out a way to delete individual messages (or access the message info, for that matter), only the entire conversation. After using the phone for a while though, i realized i never would actually want to just sort by time anyways, it does sort by time in between all contacts, just not in between all messages. Also, people have said there is no way to forward messages, which i could not figure out either. However, i can't think of the last time i've forwarded a message anyways, so that doesn't bother me.

-no contact groups. So far, i have not figured out how to make groups. I would love to pin some groups to my favorite contacts, rather than just individual contacts, but the only thing i figured how to do was to 'link' contacts. That groups them together, but then you don't see the names of the contacts, only their numbers (and i don't memorize numbers..not since i didn't have a cell). this is also directly related to mass-texting: you can send mass texts, but have to select the contacts individually, or use these groups where you can't see their individual numbers anyways, and have to select them one at a time.

-Verizon's own backup-assist does not work with this phone. I'm guessing this is because the original kin had the online studio to sync everything, and they didn't bother making it compatible. When they made it a feature phone, they didn't bother making the backup work because it was backed up a separate way. Also, i've read that it does not support bluetooth OBEX profiles, which means you can't transfer contacts via bluetooth. It does have bluetooth in general, though.

-it was said in one of the other posts that verizon has been updating its systems to be able to transfer contacts for the new kin models in its stores. I don't know whether that is fixing the backup assist compatibility issues, or providing a way to direct-connect the 2 devices and sync the contacts, but that is promising news to those who don't want to spend the time entering in all of your contacts.

-slippery backing: the material to make the backing of the phone is very slippery, what i would call poor quality plastic. sounds quite hollow too..like it could break with a drop. However, i'm getting a rubberized case for it that will hopefully fix this and not make it feel like i am going to drop the phone at any time (details later, **8). While the backing does feel cheap, the front half of the phone is very solid. it is a very thick, hard plastic, and doesn't seem like it would break upon impact. I did get a screen cover for it anyways though, because for its cost, i would rather put one on than be bothered by a permanent scratch. They are quite cheap online, although i did buy mine through verizon (they actually gave me a droid incredible cover because they didn't have kin accessories, but the screen sizes are about the same, so i can't complain).
-along the same lines, because it is slippery, it is very hard to press the back button when holding it with 1 hand. i wish it had a back button on the touch screen along with the physical button.

-form factor: the phone is largest along the front of the phone, and slighty chamfers in as you go to the back. when it is in your palm, it feels firm and tight, but when using things like the camera, it really would've been a better design to just not have that chamfer. From feel, i believe it only feels funny because the back cover is so slippery. When the case i ordered comes in, hopefully it will have enough friction to stay put and feel good in the hands.

- a general lack of settings: there aren't many theme settings (only color), and no font sizes (for some reason, you can't zoom in on texts or anything else for that matter, other than the browser and pictures), so be weary if your eyesight isn't the best. Like mentioned with the alarm, there is no vibrate as a sound setting, only a global 'vibrate with sounds' setting. A work-around (that i haven't tested yet, but would most likely work) would be just to create a blank ringtone, and call it vibrate, and keep that global setting on, but you wonder why didn't have a vibrate only setting in the first place. When the phone is put on vibrate, alarms still sound.. but they don't vibrate. but when the global vibrate is on and the phone is on low, medium, or high volume, the vibrate does work for alarms. Kind of backwards. poor software debugging, if you ask me, but its bearable. I wish you could custom move where the 'recent' and time dashboard were on the interface to the top corners, when holding it landscape, it is a lot more natural for me to press the top of hte screen, not the bottom.

-no touchscreen keyboard. it doesn't have a touch qwerty, and it also doesn't really have a keypad touch either. while the keypad does come up with calls, you can't use it for texts, or inputting anything other than just a basic phone call. in other words, you have to open the phone to type. it doesn't have t9/predicative texting, and no quick texts either.

-no back button on the touch screen..only the physical key. I wish microsoft would release an update with an optional setting to make a back and home button appear in one of the corners much like the time dashboard and recent buttons are.

-this isn't a kin specific gripe, but phones with accelerometers/auto-rotate in general. I've never had a device that had auto-rotate, so it will just take some getting used to, to keep the screen from not rotating the other way when i don't want it to (if i want to use the phone lying down, i will have to turn it the other way, etc).

-qwerty keyboard: the enter key is right next to the backspace key (not to mention that return and backspace icons look very similar...). Aftera while, you sort of remember which one is which, but having them further apart could've been a better design (there is about a half inch of free space on each side of the keyboard). Also, the keyboard does not have cursor arrow keys (up, down, left, right), and they don't come up on the touchscreen either. With all that free space, it would've been really nice if they added cursor keys, but the touch screen works well enough to just pick the spot you want to move the cursor to.

-fm radio: have to have headphones plugged into phone to use the radio. the headphones act as an antenna for the radio, which is really weird that they didn't bother putting in an internal antenna, because the phone itself already has an internal antenna..there may be a way to 'fool' the device into thinking that headphones were plugged in, but then you could use the radio with just the speaker (i don't think the quality would be too bad without the headphone antennas because the phone has so many conducting parts already..why didn't they just put in an internal FM reciever?).

-no alarm only setting in with volume

-no microSD slot. although i kind of expected this, much like the iphone or some other smartphones don't have slots, just built-in memory. But i doubt i'll run out of 8 GB, because i don't think i'll be using this as an mp3 player.

-the end call button on the touch screen is pretty small (and there is no physical key to end the call), but nothing i won't get used to.

-ringtones: from what i've read, you can't directly add custom mp3 ringtones to the phone. You have to send them via MMS to the phone. Also, there hasn't been a way to delete ringtones, as far as i know. The default ringtones aren't any good (they also have pretty cheesy names, a carry-over from the social-marketing of the original kin). You can transfer ringtones to the phone, from another phone and MMS, or by emailing your phone at ##yourphonenumber##@vzwpix.com. You also can't rename ringtones. In other words, though, if you do get ringtones (through MMS or texting it to yourself by email), make sure they are named the way you want them to be, and that you are ok with them being permanent, at least until a solution is found. I did read, that if you save the ringtone through zune, under the music folder, then you can delete it when you want.

-Cannot access kin as a mass storage device. Have to sync through zune. Although Zune isn't that bad (it is windows, and i own a PC running windows 7, making them very compatible and interlinked), i am used iTune's interface, so i just have to learn Zune's UI. You add and remove music, pics, video, etc between the phone and computer through Zune player. It is a free download software. You can also organize photo albums through zune on the computer, it just takes some getting used to if you aren't already a zune player user. I do not know if Zune player works on Mac's, but i read that they are going to be releasing a mac version soon.
download link: http://zune.net/en-us/products/software/download/default.htm

-ugly interface: unlike most touchscreen phones where the icons are small and there is blank space, the kin twom has large 'flooded' icons that cover the entire home screen, and aren't editable. I don't think it is that ugly, but it certainly is a change from 99% of the verizon-default interfaces.

- Background wallpaper: cannot orient the picture direction. I don't care too much which direction the lock screensaver is, but it may be true that you can only have the picture set in 1 direction. It does not change with the accelerometer auto-rotate, but what you can do to change between landscape and vertical is take the picture in the opposite direction and then apply it. I read on one of hte other posts that they can only set it as a landscape background, but i have only been able to set it as a vertical background. That is how i normally hold my phone anyways though, so no problem.

-Some people have said that the camera button is hard to press, and when you do, it often shakes the phone, causing a blurry picture. i haven't really had problems with that. One thing you have to realize, is it is a 2-step push camera button. Hold half-way to focus, then snap the rest to take the picture. If you push it all the way, it will quickly auto-focus and then take a picture. Same goes for the touch-screen camera take button. The phone can try to slide open a little when taking pictures, but i've found a way to hold it so it is firmly in your hands. Just make sure you are holding the back of the phone on the bottom, not just the screen part.

-There are no voice commands (as far as i've noticed, if there are, someone correct me on this). I'm putting this under con's because it is something the phone doesn't have that most phones do, but for me personally, i almost see this as a pro. Now i won't accidentally be pushing buttons and hear 'please say a command'. Now, if you use a headset or something like that, that could be a downside.

fisharefriends

**2. Overall physical quality:

While it is not the worst, it could be better. The hinge is slightly loose, but only slightly. When i purchased this, we also purchased the lg cosmos touch on another line, and that phone's physical quality is much better. The spring-action on the kin slider is strong enough to not notice the slight wobble. Like mentioned before, the back casing is a cheap plastic, and doesn't have that rubbery, silicone feel that i would like, but thats nothing that a case can't fix. The front screen plastic is thick, feels very durable. This is not one of those old brick phones that you could throw against the wall and it would look like new; it does feel strong enough to survive accidental drops here and there though, especially with a case.

The keys are pretty 'clicky', which i like. You know when you press a key and when you don't. Like said above, the capacitive touchscreen is very responsive, it is closer to being compared to apple's touch screens than other feature phones. Because it is capacitive, it does not work when contacted by non-electrical materials, like a stylus pen, or through a glove. Being a touchscreen, i don't imagine the old 'stick it in rice' trick will work if it becomes submerged in water, but i will leave that up to someone else to test.

One more thing, not quite the physical quality, but the phone speed itself isn't bad. It is slower than smartphones, but is faster than what i'm used to on my old phone. You can browse through menus fine, but it is when you select 'apps', the phone either takes a second or 2 to load, or it by default pauses on that app's icon for a set amount of time.

fisharefriends

**3. WiFi:

If you are like me, most of you are looking into/bought this phone because you were ecstatic about the ability to have wifi without a data plan. (This phone does support data plans like other 3g phones, but in my opinion, for those of you who want/can afford a data plan, do not get this phone. Get a smartphone. compared to android, apple, windows, blackberry, etc smarphones, this is the worst one of them all.) I have seen many people say it doesn't have wifi, or you still have to pay (much of this is from misinformed verizon rep's, unfortunately) for the wifi. Actually, when i first went into the store to ask them about the kin, they asked me why i wanted it and i told them because it had the camera and wifi, then they told me it didn't have wifi. That is not true. It does have wifi, and works just like any other mobile device with wifi. Verizon has no way to charge you for wifi, seeing how it is NOT their network you are connecting to. You do have to remember that the wifi is just like any other wifi out there. Some networks (certain hotels, shops, etc) do charge for their wifi, but that is not an issue with the phone, it is the wifi itself, and you should know which network you are connecting to before you do so.

It does supports secured connections, and can be switched on and off (kinda obvious). when switched on, it will automatically search for and list visible networks. I do know have an answer as to why some people haven't been able to locate/connect to certain newtorks, but that is not a phone issue, it is related to that network and its settings. The only other possible thing i can see being a problem is if the actual device's wifi hardware has malfunctioned, but the phone itself does connect to open networks, wep, wpa, and wpa2 secured networks. there is also an option to connect to hidden networks. If the network is not automatically detected, you can search for others, with the name, security type, and password.

Data blocking/avoiding charges: Without a data plan, I did not want to incur any data charges. At $1.99 a MB, that is near theft right there..so yes, those of you wondering about avoiding that, those are very valid concerns. there are several methods to avoid charges. With this phone (as well as any other phone to my knowledge), if you lose wifi connection, or browse in an area with no wifi, it will fall back onto the 3G network, thus incurring charges.

Method 1: turn on airplane mode. This is simple, you can access the wireless controls through the quick dashboard, and its a single click to turn off all phone network connections. No phone, no messages, no internet connection. But you can connect to Wifi. This is the bulletproof way to surf the net, but like i said, you can't recieve messages or calls while standalone mode is turned on.

Method 2: block data through verizon. This is what i have done. You can do it online, through a phone representative, or directly at a verizon store. Many of the reviews saying they have blocked contacts say you can't use MMS when you block data. That, however, is not true. When talking to a rep on the phone, or in stores, tell them that you want to block all data, but keep multimedia messages unblocked. I did this in stores, and i much prefer talking to someone in person than over the phone (ironic, considering we're talking about phones), and they got it working.

More properly, block all data, but have national remain unblocked. THat is what multimedia messages go through, not through data. I have tested this, and i can send pictures to both verizon customers, and non-verizon customers. i have tested recieving from verizon, but did not bother testing recieving from non-verizon customers because i assumed if you can send them, you can recieve them. If someone else could verify this, that would be great. To make sure data was blocked, i kept wifi off, and tried accessing the browser and some sites, and they did not connect (with the exception of some of the pages that retained their cache, like google). As for billing, i am waiting to verify this. I can check my verizon account online, and where data (@$1.99/MB) used to be, that category is now gone. At the end of hte month, i will be able to verify that on the bill, but until then, i will be cautious about my wifi browsing.

When it comes to blocking data online through My Verizon, i do not quite know where the link is on the page(because i am not the primary line on the account, i don't have access to those controls). I do know you can block data online, but i don't know if you can block data, but keep MMS active, while doing it online. Some posts i read that you can, and others said you can't. If someone could verify and provide detail on this, it would be much appreciated.

fisharefriends

**4. Phone (contacts, groups, messaging, mass texts, etc)

The messages are threaded. they are sorted by date, through each contact. You cannot sort by just date, it is threaded only. Also, the call history shows up within the message threads, which i find pretty nice, but not everyone will like this. They are timestamped, and they show up in a very 'instant-messaging' format. You can send texts larger than 160 characters, it will auto-divide them for non-verizon customers. It does not show how many characters each text is, but since there is no hard cap, you don't have to worry about that. You cannot delete individual messages (or select them for that matter), nor view each individual messages' message info. when adding recipients, you can go ahead and type in the contact name, and it will auto-search for them through your contacts. Also, your favorite contacts will show up on the select contact screen to scroll through automatically. You can have roughly 15 favorites. you cannot forward messages, and also can't select emails within contacts to send messages to, but you can type in emails. Because there is no touchscreen keyboard or keypad (other than the basic phonecall screen), you have to open the phone to type anything.

I have not figured out how to create groups on the phone, which is quite annoying because even the oldest of phones has groups. I would like to be able to favorite a group, then have that act as a subfolder for contacts within that, but cannot figure it out. This is also how you would normally send a mass text to certain people, but i cannot get it working. You can link contacts, which puts other contacts' numbers under a single contact link, but the problem with this is they all show up under that link's name, and all you have is the number. unless you memorize everyone's number, you don't know who you are selecting within the link. You also can only select one of the links at a time, it does not stay in the menu and allow you to select all, or pick a certain number of them individually.

You can set custom ringtones per contact. There does seem to be a problem deleting ringtones as well as renaming (as mentioned in cons). You also can't directly add a custom mp3 ringtone to the phone, you have to send it through a MMS/email it to yourself.
A site that i heard is good for downloading free and/or cheap ringtones is:
http://www.myxer.com
You don't have to register, and you can change the name, sound/song clip duration, volume, etc from the site before sending it. If you add the ringtone to the music folder through Zune, you can manage and delete them. This seems to be the only way of doing so, at least until a solution is found.

fisharefriends

**5 Camera

The camera is an 8 MP camera, with 720P HD video. Overall, it is a good quality camera. It is not as clear as say, a regular 8 MP camera, but what do you expect on a phone? It is easily better than any other phone camera i've seen. 90% of the camera quality comes from its focus, and the taker holding the camera still while the picture is taken, not the actual quality of the camera. It has an auto-focus, and the camera button is a 2-step button. push 1/2 way for focus, then all the way for take. you can push it all the way, and it will quickly focus then take the picture, or you can push the icon on the touch screen to take a picture (with that quick auto-focus). You have to hold the camera still just like any other camera (although, most regular cameras have a shake correction) while it focuses, and then while it is actually taking the picture.

It also has flash, night mode, and a 3-picture burst snapshot mode. There are different lighting settings too. The video is very good quality. You cannot use flash with it. Sound is clear. One downside with the camera and the video is that its auto-focus is done with the light sensor on the phone, not from how much light it detects at the areas of the photo (like a normal camera would do). Most (if not all) phone cameras usually can't do that anyways, though. I took my phone to a basketball game and took pictures from the stands, and that is one example where that could be problematic with auto mode (because the stands are dark and recieve little light, while the floor is well lit and the camera over-floods with light after the auto lighting adjustment). THe flash works quite well (remember, we're talking about a phone camera), i took pictures in pitch dark, and they came out to what i would call 2-3MP camera quality. Like any other camera, the flash only works up to a certain distance, it is a quick light that can only travel so far.

Overall, the camera quality far exceeds expectations. After user-error, i would say the pictures come out more 5 MP quality in light, and 2.5 in dark, with flash. THe video is very clear, as is its sound quality.

fisharefriends

**6 Zune

It is just like a zune player (although i've never owned a zune, so someone correct me on this). Music sorted just like it would be on the Zune (artist, playlists, genres, songs, etc). I haven't tried the video, but i imagine its all the same. There is FM radio, but you need to plug in headphones to use it (it uses them as an antenna). Any headphones will work with the phone. The headphones it comes with has a button/microphone on it, so you can answer calls with it. Same as iPhone headphones. There is Zune pass, but since i don't plan on using it, i don't have any answers to how it works, whether it can be synced via wi-fi, or if podcasts can be auto-updated via wifi. Again, if someone else could provide that answer, it would be appreciated.

fisharefriends

**7 Secondary apps: alarm, calculator, calendar, browser, email

Alarm: 10 alarms. Can set to once, every day, workdays, weekends, or certain days of the week. Can set ringtones to alarms, but for some reason, can't set alarms to vibrate only. When set in vibrate mode, the alarm will still sound, but it won't vibrate at all. When global 'vibrate with sounds' is turned on, it will vibrate with the alarm on high, medium, and low, but not on vibrate (kind of backwards..). I will be trying to make a custom vibrate ringtone, because that is how i usually had my alarms on my old phone. I think i can do this by create a ringtone, but making it either with no sound, or just volume that is quiet enough it isn't audible, and then saving it under the name Vibrate Only. Then, it will work with global vibrate on.

Calculator: basic calculator. No exponentials, parenthesis, etc. Has memory (stores last answer), it is nearly identical to those old small basic calculators with +-*/. Good enough for a phone. No unit converter (but being an engineer..i know most of the basics anyways!)

Calendar: by date, and by month view, as well as by occasion. Can set start, end time, as well as can repeat just once, every day, every week, every 2 weeks, every month, or every year. You can add a location and a note along with the event name, and set a reminder time before the event, up to 2 days before. You cannot sync the calendar to outlook, gmail calendar, etc. I am satisfied, but that could be because i came from a phone as old as the razr, where the calendar was even more basic.

No notes, which at first was kind of a bummer, but i just found that texting myself is just as good, especially with threaded texts (i know where to find them all).
No games, does not have the usual Verizon Get it Now stuff, but that is fine for me because without a data plan, i would have to pay for all that anyways, which i never used.

Browser: Based off of IE6, has a cache storage, cookies, search history (through the search bar). It uses Javascript, i believe to play videos on sites that support it (like youtube). Simple browser, can zoom, type in entries, the basics. You can favorite certain pages to the favorites in the browser, or directly pin them to the home 'apps' screen. Does not work with skype, online radio, online video streaming, etc. I have not been able to access sites that need popups.

Email: can import email addresses, from hotmail, gmail, Aol, yahoo, or an IMAP/POP account. I have not used the emails app yet, only accessed my email through the browser, but i presume it works well. I'm pretty sure you can use it with just Wifi, if someone can confirm. You can set how often it syncs, from 15 min, 30 in, hourly, or manually. You can add email signatures (but oddly, the kin doesn't have text signatures). Typical mobile email app.

fisharefriends

**8. Cases

I would highly recommend a case for this phone, the back cover feels very weak, and its texture is very slippery. I like a rubbery feel to it, and have ordered a case for about $4 including shipping ($.99 without). I have read that the cases fit well, without interfering with the slide of the phone, when i recieve the case i will verify this. Also, the case i ordered surrounds the volume keys completely, which i hope helps me in not accidentally pressing them. I don't necessarily have a problem pressing them (my phone hasn't turned its volume up while it was supposed to be silenced in my pocket yet), but it is more of a paranoia knowing that it could be changed by accident. Although i believe this phone has a sensor of some sort anyways to prevent that (discussed later, **9). A grippy case will also hopefully help in holding the phone because of its backwards chamfer to the design (along with firmly pressing the camera button). They range from $4-$25, those prices including shipping. Also, i have a screen cover on mine, i bought it from verizon because i was antsy to get one on my phone, but you are best going through an online vendor for these to save money (verizon sells for $12.. online for $4 including shipping). If you do end up purchasing both case and protector, purchase them together to save on shipping (especially if you get one of the cheaper cases..the shipping is already 2x the price of the case and protectors)

Here are some links to cases and screen covers (I am not marketing anything, these are just a few that i found on Amazon):
AccessoryOne black rubber-feel snap on case ($1 +$2.94 shipping):
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rubber-Protector-Verizon-Microsoft/dp/B003R1E9LA/ref=pd_bxgy_cps_img_c

Carbon Fiber hard case ($1.46 + $2.98 shipping):
http://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Phone-Carbon-Protective-Faceplate/dp/B003U8GPIA/ref=pd_cp_cps_3

Body Glove hard shell textured case, with clip/stand (removable) ($11.41 +$6.19 shipping):
http://www.amazon.com/Kin-Two-Body-Glove-Snap-on/dp/B003XM6I4Y/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_2

Clear Screen protector, full screen cover ($1.94 + $2.94 shipping):
http://www.amazon.com/Clear-Screen-Protector-Sharp-Kin/dp/B003URPL0Y/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_7

Screen protector, 2-pack, display area only ($.96 + $2.98 shipping):
http://www.amazon.com/Kin-Two-Screen-Protector-2-pack/dp/B003Q9CWBC/ref=pd_bxgy_cps_img_b

fisharefriends

**9. Sensors & extra

The Kin has an phototransistor (light sensor) for the auto-brightness (it can be set manual brightness, but i find the autobrightness works great), as well as the obvious capacitive touch screen. It also uses that transistor (i also think it is an infared sensor..) up by the earpiece for turning off the touch screen while answering calls, which is pretty common in capacative touch phones (so your cheek doesn't do something you don't want it to). I also discovered it does something more than that. Now, i'm not sure if i am the only one who has experienced this, but sometimes when i'm not actually holding the phone (say, it is in my pocket), but i push the unlock, back, or volume buttons, the don't actually register the command. At first, i just thought that was because the buttons could've been loose and i wasn't pushing it to acutally contact the electric signal. However, doing this in the dark and looking at the infared/photo sensor (the dot by the earpiece), you can see the slight reddish infared light actually turn on pretty much every time (even when the unlock button doesn't unlock the phone).

I believe it senses through the phone, with the same sensor that detects if the phone is up to your face, lets say the example of your phone in your pocket, if that sensor has a heat source (and/or no light source) next to it (your hand, face, leg, etc), it will fully lock everything, including the volume, back, and even the lock button. I have played around with this, trying to push the buttons in my pocket, touching the actual phone as little as possible but pushing the buttons in the exact same ways as i do when firmly hold it, and it doesn't actually register the commands when there isn't that change in temperature.

This got me curious, so i connected to a call, and used my hand, as well as non-conducting, non heat-emitting objects (paper, etc) to see when the phone recognized a 'face' next to it. During calls, i believe it uses a light detector to sense when something is next to it. If you cover that sensor, then it will blank/lock the screen, much like it does when you put it up to your face to talk. I also played around with it when it was locked. When i put my finger over the sensor and pushed the unlock button, back button, or volume buttons, they were all completely locked. However, when covering the sensor with that non heat-emitting material, it still would register. THat makes me believe it uses an infared sensor when it is locked. Another test, when i put it in my pocket, and then only lightly touched the keys, avoiding contacting the rest of the phone, it was still locked. Then, when keeping it still next to my leg (through the pocket), but then firmly gripping it by the sides, the buttons did work.

It seems the Kin uses a combo of touch, photo (light), and infared sensing throughout the phone to control when it is partially locked (physical keys still work, including volume) and when it is fully locked (none of hte keys register). However, even when the sensor is covered by my finger, if you hold the lock, it will pop up with the power off menu. That seems to be the one thing that never will lock. I have seen complaints about the phone freezing at times, and this could be part of the reason why, if they were trying to unlock their phone, and were accidentally covering that sensor.

If anyone has any more knowledge about this, whether to confirm or prove that it isn't true, that would be helpful. Again, this is just speculation. I've never seen anything about this anywhere, and i was more just curious as to how the phone worked to keep on testing the sensors. After reading this, yes, it could well have been just a waste of time, but the engineer in me wanted to know how the device actually worked.

This phone does have a phone pin lock, where you have to enter in a pin to unlock it (found on other phones too). However, after 8 tries, the phone prompts a warning that asks for a separate key-in code on top of the pin, and then on the 10th try, it resets/wipes the phone. I see this as being potentially hazardous, if you do use the pin lock and have kids playing with your phone, or if someone has a grudge and wants to erase your phone, they can..but i don't think i would worry too much about it. It was designed as a security check, but i would've thought it would have something like a 10 min cooldown phone lock, to stop someone from hacking in, before it decided to completely wipe the phone memory clean. This is all from the instruction manual, i didn't actually try this, because i don't really want to test-wipe my phone.

Finally, this is just info from some other threads, but there is a hidden menu of the phone (i accessed it, but didn't do anything in there because i don't want to screw anything up). You can access it by dialing ##77647266488 (##programming) from the phone app (you can't access it if you save the number through contacts). It will ask for the service programming code, and by default it is 000000.

I read that you can disable data from this menu (although it will simultaneously disable MMS), as well as make it so a computer can see the phone as a mass storage device (but someone said most of the device is locked, so you can't manually and and remove files..yet), but i have not (and probably won't) explored it any further. I believe this is the same menu that they access at stores and etc to set up the phones (the verizon rep that tried to help transfer my contacts used this menu to try to manually direct-connect the old and new devices).

**But please NOTE, i do not know what any of these actually do, whether they mess anything else up, so access and change settings at your own discretion.**

fisharefriends

**10. Questions

I do have some questions of my own, if anyone can provide some answers:

-does this phone have contact groups? specifically, is there a way to pin groups to favorites, and have them act like individual folders, like most other phones do?

-along the same line, how do you send mass texts, besides the linking of contacts, which doesn't show the contact name next to the number?
-anyone have any luck figuring out how to delete individual messages?
- accessing the message info?
- forwarding messages?

- selecting an email from a contact to send a text?

-Any info on being able to backup/transfer contacts status (in-store, through the file transfer, new update to backup assist and the kin, etc)?
-any way to get alarms to purely vibrate?

-when i set alarms to once only, after the alarm goes off, it doesn't delete itself like my old phone did. However, it does say 'saturday', no plural, so does it delete itself the next day (have not gotten around to testing this)?

-any way to delete ringtones (besides saving them to the music folder)? whether direct access, or through a computer, with changing settings..

-how do the sensors actually work? (read section 9 for what i am getting at)

-way to use radio without headphones?

-are there voice commands on the kin twom? it can come in handy with headsets that use it.

-anyone know more details about the hidden setup menu, its settings, etc?
-anyone work at microsoft, and would kindly pass along the message to fix these firmware issues, or have answers (not just assumptions) if they are putting these phones back into production and support, rather than just clearing inventory?

Very long review (took longer than it would've needed to transfer all my contacts..hopefully the rumor about verizon releasing updates to its in-store system to allow contact transfers is true so i don't have to spend a few hours doing that), but i hope it provides insight to a phone that failed, and now is one of the best feature phones available. This phone has features that no other feature phone has, and that is what makes it a great phone. Yes, there are software issues and some problems of that sort, but it just depends on whether they will bother you and how particular you are about them. I hope microsoft/verizon releases a patch/update for this phone to fix many of those issues, but even if they don't, most of the problems have workarounds. Lets hope these phones sell like hotcakes, and microsoft/sharp/verizon restarts production and support for these phones!

This phone is not a smartphone. this phone is not a feature phone. It is a hybrid of the 2, right in between the 2 categorys. Hope this helps in making a more informed choice to buying a phone, or has answers to owner's questions. If anyone has corrections to any of this information, please feel free to correct it, that would be helpful to me and other readers alike. Thank, Cheers.

ps. Microsoft/verizon is closing down their kin studio service January 31st. For those owners, they can get any free 3G phone upgrade by march 31, 2011. I don't know what this says about the kin onem/twom, but i hope it means they are diverting that support to the m models and release a firmware update soon, rather than cutting off all kin support.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/11/kin-studio-closing-january-31st-verizon-offers-free-phones-to-a/

KeepOnSingin

I just got the Kin last night, and I'm trying to figure it out -- how do you close the browser? If you go back to the home screen, does that do it? I was playing with it (in airplane mode, plus my line has all data blocked...but I'm paranoid), and I couldn't find a close button or anything.

As to the vibrate for alarms...I can't figure that out either!

fisharefriends

From what i've tried, it seems like closing out of the browser is as simple as the back button. This is just a guess, but i don't think the wifi/internet actually transfers anything outside of the browser 'app' window. While you can go back into the browser and it keeps your last page 'open', i think what it does is stores that page data in the memory cache, so you can quickly access it again. If you are like me, and wish that there was a home screen for the browser, you can always just favorite the page that you want as your home screen (say, google is what i use), and just select it as you exit the browser. This phone does have browsing history, so that is why you are remaining on that site when you go back into the browser. I guess just don't do any fishy activity from your phone browser, because it will remember it (unless you clear the cache memory/cookies etc, which you can do in settings).

Like you are doing, if you are only using Wifi (airplane mode+data blocked is a bulletproof solution..you're not paranoid you just don't want the ridiculous data charges), then when you quit, just disable Wifi. I only turn it on when i actually want to use it (and its a breeze too, because you can access the wireless settings through the time dashboard). THe main reason i do this is to save battery power. If it is always scanning for a wifi connection, it will eat up your batter really quick (just like if you are in a no-service location like a deep basement or tunnel, your phone will die 5x faster than if you had service).

Hope this answers your question.

I will be testing the custom vibrate alarm in the future (next week or so), so i will let you know if it works. Theoretically, it should, you would just have to have your phone on low, medium, or high. I have no clue why the phone alarm doesn't vibrate when the phone is on vibrate, that is a firmware coding bug on microsoft's part.

I could not figure out how to edit a post that i posted last night, i guess these forums have a time limit on edits. So, i will add it here.

**4 Phone (cont'd)

Cursor and QWERTY keyboard functionality and layout: with the kin, you are allowed to move the cursor by touching on the screen. Also, if you hold your finger down where you type messages, it will blow up that 'window' and you can slide your finger across the text, and the cursor will follow it. The type cursor does 'live update' when you do this, so if you are making a precision edit to a text, this is very helpful. In the past, i have also been able to highlight entire words at a time, as well as the entire message, but i have not been able to replicate it, so i can't post how to do that. I'm pretty sure you can, though. The phone does not have arrow cursors (physical or on the touchscreen), but i just barely discovered this cursor 'scrolling' and it almost eliminates my gripes about not having arrow keys because you still can precisely navigate a text and place the cursor where you want to.

The backspace button has a very nice, quick repeat time on it, and there is no super long delay before it starts deleting characters. It is very comparable to a computer repeat time, which i really like. If you need to delete long sections, this is very useful. (also, the highlighting words functionality helps deleting whole words, or even whole messages, but i can't get it working atm, if someone else could answer this that would be great). The regular keys (alphabet) do not have a repeat to them, but when you do hold them down, if that letter has symbolics to it (like say, accents on vowels, etc), it will pull them up in a menu on the touch screen. The spacebar does have a repeat to it if you hold it down, it is also quick like the backspace button. THe keyboard also has caps, and symbolic quick keys, where if you push them twice, it locks it in capslock and 'numlock' until you push that button again. The symbolic functions are painted on in a neon green color, which can be hard to read if your vision isn't that good, but when the keyboard backlight is on (yes, it has one..auto-brightness will turn it on in lower light, or i believe it will also turn on when you use manual brightness, but i'm not sure), they are easier to see. Numbers make up the symbolic key's top row, then the next 2 rows are many other commonly used symbols.

There is no predicative texting, which is kind of a bummer but not that big of a deal with the full keyboard. There is also an emoticon quick key (although smileys appear like :smileyhappy:, and i don't normally put noses..but oh well i guess i will have noses now), which can also be scrolled through for the rest of the symbol keys that don't appear with the symbol shortcut. I do not know if when you send these texts to phones that don't have all the symbols, if they just appear as blanks, but i believe this is what happens. This is not a kin problem, just an 'enhanced text' phone to simple messaging phone function. There is a search quick key (search 'apps' and contacts), and a call key (brings you to the phone). It is well spaced for larger hands, and spacebar is on its own line. You can watch the video posted by another reviewer (linked to in section **1) to get a visual of the keyboard layout.

I am very satisfied with the keyboard, although there are times i wish there was at least a touch keypad with predicative texting for quick replies, but i will live it's not that bad.

Pammy

Thanks for taking the time to type of all of this info and thanks for the link to Myxer. I tried Myxer and was able to download new ringtones that I wanted to use as an alarm, because the existing ringtones that came on the Kin TwoM aren't loud enough to wake me up. I was able to get the new ringtones onto my phone through Zune, but don't see the new Ringtones when I edit the alarm and select the new ringtone for the sound. I see the ringtones under music on the Kin TwoM, but not in the list of ringtones . Any tips for me? Thanks. Pam

seebonbon

First of all, thank you, fisharefriends, for this much-needed detailed review. Your review and the youtube review (the one that you linked to) were the two mainstay reviews I've gone back to repeatedly while deciding on the KinTWOm and even now, as a 5th-day owner of the phone. Thank you so much!

I've been playing around with our home wifi and the whole data thing (and incurred 1.67Mb while at it), and I wanted to add some info that might be helpful. So you won't make the same mistakes I did. :smileywink:

-------------

But before I go any further, let me just give you THE method to make sure data does not incur on your bill.

Basically, block all data but pix/flix online (since it's hard for me to go in-store - got a few young 'uns, and since navigating through the phone menus to get to a rep drives me bonkers, I definitely prefer going online ).

***The link to block services online is as follows (Verizon hides it pretty well):***

>>Above the phone image, select your "Line".

>>After the page loads, look under the Plan column and find the "Change Features" link. Click on it.

>>Scroll all the way to the bottom. Under the red arrow (Next button), there's an Additional Services section at the bottom. >>Select "Service Blocks".

>>Select/Block/Blue everything BUT "Block Picture and Video Messaging"

That's the short story! The long story of how I got there is below. Hope it helps you folks!

-------------

1. When I first got my KinTWOm last week, I couldn't wait to play with the wifi feature. I went online and fixed it so that my service blocks included everything BUT "Block All Data" and "Block Picture and Video Messaging". I figured that I didn't want to block all data... and that if I hit the "airplane mode" before "wifi", I would be safe.

I was wrong.

Sure enough, after browsing a bit online with my new phone, AND using airplane mode, I called #DATA (they then send a free text of all my data usage), and I saw that I incurred some megabytes . I guess when I hit wifi BEFORE airplane mode gets hit, then I'm going on Verizon's 3G network (which is where I incurred data). So that method was frustrating. and tricky, to say the least!

****lesson learned: Blocking all BUT two - data AND pics/vid messaging - AND using airplane mode = not failproof! -> still a chance of racking up data.

2. So I went online AGAIN, and because I got paranoid, I blocked EVERYTHING. Then I was able to browse online using our home wifi (which, by the way, is a little faulty on the phone, but good enough; just know that I've had to reboot our wireless router 2x within the week just to get my Kin to see our wifi and connect decently).

I called #DATA to check (since if I checked online they take the data section off when you block all data), and saw that no MB was used. YAY. But still.... I wasn't able to send/receive pics. BOO. So that was annoying. Nevertheless, it was pretty significant that I didn't see any change in data usage.

****lesson learned: Blocking ALL - including data AND pics/vid messaging = failproof, BUT you can't send/receive pix/vids.

3. So I went online AGAIN - because I love sending pix and vids - and blocked everything BUT "Block Picture and Video Messaging". Sent pics to myself, browsed online - didn't even use airplane mode on - downloaded ringtones (used phonezoo by the way, and downloaded to pc, & emailed to my ###-####@vzwpix.com (which sends it to my Kin).

I called #DATA to check and YAY! no data incurred! Just a few texts (one pix counts as one text).

****lesson learned: Blocking all (including data) BUT one - pics/vid messaging = failproof, AND can send/receive pix/vids.

and you don't have to have airplane mode on to browse on your home wifi network.

So there you go! Hope all this helps.

fisharefriends

You are welcome. I hope many others will hear of this phone and increase its sales, leading to more demand for firmware updates.

Thank you for posting this detailed guide on how to block data online. Although it is very strange..how airplane mode would not be an absolute, failproof way of blocking data (needless to say, i wouldn't use airplane mode in the first place, because i want to use my phone as a phone first and foremost), because i thought it turned off all connections to the phone (with wifi as the exception).

One quick note on the data check: when calling #DATA for the free text, make sure you look at the date of when the data used was last updated. For some reason, when i do call, the last update on my data usage was the day that i blocked data, from in-stores. Again, the real fail-proof way to know if data has been blocked, is check the bill, so i will do so at the end of the month. But, like i stated before, i cannot connect to any webpages when wifi is turned off..which gives me the assumption that data really is fully blocked.

Update on contacts: Today, i went into the Verizon store and the rep successfully transferred my contacts. I had to wait 40 min while he did so (a mix between him calling for info..checking this and that..and other 'behind the door' stuff), but to be honest, it would've taken me much longer to enter them all by hand, so it paid off. The only suggestion i can make, when going in-store and having contacts transferred, is be very specific, tell them all that you know, be patient, and hope for the best. Yes, i had to inform the reps that the phone did not have backup assist, as well as reading online that their systems had been updated in the last week, so i knew it was possible to transfer the contacts. But in the end, that helped, because then the rep knew that he could get it working, he would just have to contact the right person to make it work. Verizon has not yet updated its employees about this phone..i had to inform one of them what the phone even was, and the other one that helped me, he knew of the Kin, but didn't know that it was relaunched, with new software.

Also, the case i bought for the phone came in the mail today (it is linked on the first page..the $4 case). It is a snap-on plastic case, with a rubber coating on it. Yes, it is a cheap case..hence the $1 price tag on it..but it serves what i want it to do. I bought this case initially because it was the only one that i could find with the case actually enclosing the volume buttons (the other ones don't have the piece between the volume and lock button), and because i wanted something to make the phone less slippery. It also makes pushing the camera button easier in my opinion. It hides it away, true, so if you have large fingers, it may be hard to reach, but for mid-sized/small fingers, the casing friction guides your finger into the button, reducing user-caused shake when taking pictures.

The exterior of the case is rubber-coated, i do not know its durability, but for $4 (save yourself money, and buy multiple purchases with 1 order, the shipping alone was $3), its worth a shot. Yes, it adds some bulk, but so does any other phone case. It snaps on nicely, and while it doesn't inhibit the phone's opening and closing, it does slightly get rubbed against when sliding, which makes it a little tighter (actually almost a bonus..). Worst case, I don't like it, or the rubber coating wears off within a month or so (i don't like plastic cases, i wish they had silicone cases for this phone, but rubber-coated will do), i waste $4, and buy a better quality case (body glove brand, etc). Again, the only downside to all other cases that i saw were that they didn't have the divider between the volume and lock keys, making them have less protection from bumps..

tightwad

You can't get combined shipping savings...it's $2.94 per item. $4 for a case is probably fine, but I was hoping to combine shipping and couldn't find a way.

seebonbon

Hi again! Just wanted to add about the screen-protectors.

Went in-store today (was gonna amazon it, but hubby said we might find a better one in-store). The rep showed me the Kin Two screen protectors from the Kin Two manufacturers - pack of 3 display only screen
protectors. Saw the sticker price of $12.99 and balked at it! Complained, but had them ring it up anyway, and as it turns out, there was a discount to it, to a total of $4.06 - about nine bucks of saving! The rep even put it on for me. How nice! :smileyhappy:

seebonbon

the only way i've succesfully gotten rid of dial tones while dialing is voluming it all the way down right before dialing.

seebonbon

Hi there! It is so annoying that the alarm will sound even when the phone is set to vibrate.

I tried looking for a vibrate ringtone - no success.

However, I found a work-around that is not perfect, but does the job of alarming with just vibrate - I just plug the headset/earphones in. The phone vibrates,
but the alarm ringtone sounds through the earphones, which decreases the sound pretty significantly.

Just be sure to unplug headset after alarm is done. :smileyhappy:

fisharefriends

For making the phone vibrate only: i have not yet done this because i haven't found the time, but i believe it would work. Just create a ringtone (from various ringtone sites, select a free one or upload one) that is 'blank', has no sound to it (or some of the sites let you adjust volume, turn it all the way down). Then, just call it Vibrate only, silent, or something of the sort and voila. Has anyone given this a try? I will probably do so in the next week, because i am used to having my phone alarm as vibrate only.

seebonbon

fisharefriends! IT WORKS!! IT WORKS!!! thanks so much for the heads up.

i have a phonezoo account (from previous phone - an LGENv2) and looked up "blank" ringtones, as you suggested, and uploaded it to my pc, renamed it as "vibrate", and sent it to my phone.

here's the one i used - a very nice, long, vibrate ringtone, that repeats until you dismiss or snooze it -

free blank ringtone

it works beautifully!!! everyone else who needs a vibrating only alarm, click on the link! :smileyhappy: ~cici

seebonbon

ok... tested it again and here's a major heads up:

just know that with the blank ringtone, for it to make the phone vibrate, the volume settings have to be on SOFT to LOUD.

which means, if the phone setting is set to VIBRATE, the phone will NOT VIBRATE.

which means, that while the alarm can VIBRATE with this ringtone, incoming calls will make sound. (because the volume settings itself is on SOFT or LOUD).

ugh.

i guess we can't have it both ways (a vibrating alarm and incoming calls silent/vibrate)

seebonbon

i think phonezoo is great.

and actually better than myxer.com (tried that site when i saw that post). didn't like how i had to go into the ringtone, wait for the page to load, in order to play/preview a ringtone at myxer.com.

but yes, with phonezoo you need to do the subscription thing. it's free & i don't remember getting spam emails from them.

with my last phone - lgenv2 - i used to just text the ringtone to my phone. that was about 2 years ago. this week i logged in at phonezoo the first time, & i noticed potential ads/ spam being sent to phone, so this time around i just save it to pc (they provide a link/button for that). it automatically downloads as an mp3 file w/ the zune icon, in my downloads folder. then i just rename it, then email it as an attachment to my phone and save it as as a ringtone.

so far so good! one of the major things i like is i can use whatever soundclip fromwhatever music file i have and make it into a ringtone through phonezoo.

pretty neat! hope that helps. double check me on the subscription thing tho.. not a 100% sure that a subscription is needed to download ringtones.

fisharefriends

I will try that when i get around to it. Hopefully you don't have to register, i don't like registering for things i don't have to. Thanks seebonbon.

As far as cases go, i posted this in one of the other topics, so i'll put it here too.

I have the $4 AccessoryOne black 'rubberized' case, and now when pushing the button, your finger actually kind of sinks into the button. When it comes to pushing the camera button, i actually find it easier with the case. My fingers aren't small, but they also aren't large. The problem without the case is the reverse-chamfer on the phone, added to the slippery nature of the plastic of the battery cover. Now, i can hold the phone tightly because of the rubber's friction, and then the groove for the camera button helps my finger go directly down on it. It also protects the buttons from being pressed, especially the volume buttons which don't lock, which i like. For $4, money well worth. It really doesn't feel that cheap once it is on the phone. The entire outside has a 'rubber-textured' coating, which is really all you have contact with anyways. It does add a little friction to the sliding of the phone, but i almost like that cause it makes the slide a little tighter. If you have large fingers, you will find pusing the buttons hard, so i don't recommend this case for you.

As far as the friction of hte sliding goes, if you want to fix this, go ahead and take a file/sandpaper to the case's 'clipping areas', which is where i believe the parts are contacting. Don't file away too much, but just enough to give it some clearance. Worst-case scenario, you thin the clips too much and make them weak, and/or damage/break your $4 case (assuming you did the smart thing and filed it while the case was OFF the phone).

Also, if you don't like the additional bulkiness (about 1/8") added by cases, you could just spray some 'rubber' onto your battery cover. I thought about doing this, but i decided the bulkiness of hte case wasn't too bad to bother me (although i might change my mind in the future). Take off your cover, and go out and buy some Plasti-Dip (sells for about $6, for a quart-ish sized can..pretty cheap). It can be found in the paint section of Home Depot, and i assume the same for Lowes/other stores, or online. This stuff is the material they use for making plier-handles and other tool handles, but i also use a lot of this stuff for other purposes at work. It is really just a rubber-compound, with some Methyl-Ethyl Ketone (MEK) mixed in to make it 'liquidized' (the actual composition is on the can, although i never really read the whole label). They sell them in brush-on/dip cans, as well as spray-cans, i would recommend the spray-on for this application. There are directions on the container, but it is simple enough.

Make sure you are in a properly-aerated location like outdoors (as you would for any other chemicals), pop off the battery cover, and place it on a surface.Give it a light coating, to sufficiently cover the case, but not 'globby', and let it set. I think 1 coating is sufficient, but you can experiment with this and give it another if you like. Make sure you don't spray the inside, or the side 'clip' sections, which could cause the cover to not fit properly onto the phone. And Voila, you have a rubber-textured battery cover. This stuff does peel off, although i don't know how much prying you'd have to do without a release-agent applied.

If you are worried you will mess up, go ahead and apply some 'release agent' (some sort of oil..cooking oil, baby oil, shortening, it all will work) at first and practice around with the plasti-dip material. Then, peel it off (easily done with the release agent), and try again. When you are ready to apply the actual 'permanent' coating, make sure you degrease the cover (rubbing alcohol will do, or if you have denatured alcohol or other chemicals...although those stronger 'industrial' agents could also take off the paint from the cover) and apply the spray 1 last time. If you are still worried about ruining the phone battery cover, you can look online to see if they sell kin one/two battery covers (they don't need to be M models, the hardware between the old and new kin phones are identical), but i haven't done so, so i don't know if they sell extra covers for this phone that you could do this on. After time, it could possibly wear off, but then just apply another coat (there's plenty of this stuff in a can...for $6, you can find many other uses for it around the house, otherwise it'll just go to waste).

caliman

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to post about the Kin TWO m... I agree, it is one of the better featuere phones and could use some improvement.

Where did you find your case protectors and for how much? Can I purchase a case protector for the old Kin, or is the old Kin a slightly different size? i am not finding any cases on ebay for this specific phone.

Thanks

fisharefriends

caliman, on post **8, i provided a few amazon links to cases and screen protectors. They range from $4-$18, including shipping (in fact, for the $4, the case itself was $1, and shipping $3). The information regarding being able to combine shipping costs isn't true, but other than that, it is good reference. I own the $4 case that is linked, and i am happy with it. Depending on your price range, as well as preference to case, find one that fits you. The main thing i bought a case for was to make the phone less slippery, as well as make the buttons harder to push, seeing how the volume does not lock. The case serves those purposes well.

The original kin phones and these M models are identical hardware. So, yes, their cases are also identical, kin one cases fit the Kin onem, and kin two cases fit the kin twom. Their differences lie in software.

mcdietz

Sorry if I missed it, but I don't think anybody else has mentioned this feature of the phones. If you actually use the birthdate and anniversary entries for contacts the built-in calendar will automatically place those dates into phone and give you a reminder. It will even tell you how many years old the person is who is having the birthday. Thought that was kinda cool and a nice little surprise.

dsonyay

**7 Secondary APPS (Calender)

There doesn't appear to be a way to edit a contact's birthday WITHOUT year of birth. I know the birthdays of some of my friends but not the year. Anyway around that without having to input the year? For now I input the current year, but when you go to calender and look at upcoming occasions, their birthday show up with an OBVIOUS error in their ages. Not a big deal, BUT it would be nice to avoid having to input a year for the birthday of contacts. (Or for that matter, anniversaries too)

dsonyay

Yeah- I found it too. Unfortunately for some people I have no idea the year they were born. Only the day/month. So if I make up a year just to get it to accept the entry, their ages show up wrong or maybe close enough in the "occasions" feature

fisharefriends

You could..always just ask the people you are entering the birthdays/anniversaries of. And darn better know your own anniversary, or you deserve to be in trouble :smileywink: For those others, if you know their age, do some math and figure out their birth year. And if you don't know their age, then you don't that what you entered is wrong Not that they'll be offended if they aren't close enough to you to ask, they'll never know it was wrong.

As far as solutions on the phone go, i don't personally use these features, but don't imagine theres a way.

jfuqua

Outstanding info, Fish. Your efforts ended up being a reason I got our entire family KIN2m phones.

Just to add to this for the macintosh user, you can add your mp3 collection even though you can't use Zune by going to http://www.markspace.com/. This is a free and worked wonderfully for adding my iTunes. It also handles photos and video.

fisharefriends

You're welcome, jfuqua.

I have to say, markspace sounds very promising (especially for mac users). Do you mind providing a little more info on how it functions? I haven't put any music on the phone because i have around 20 GB, and theres no way i can narrow that down to ~4 gig that i would put max on the phone (leave some space for photos and video), except by just adding my playlists. I use iTunes on a PC (Windows 7), and it is all organized through there. So, i have no background with the Zune software, and i don't plan on recreating playlists by hand anytime soon. Being able to somewhat directly transfer from iTunes would be a wonder.

As far as ringtones/alarms/etc go, both phonezoo.com and myxer.com work well. myxer doesn't require registration while phonezoo does, however i found that phonezoo has a much larger collection and better customization (haven't found the 'volume' on myxer to make any difference, and that is all myxer has over phonezoo), as well as it is all free, where myxer is some free, some of charge.

I would suggest saving them to your pc, then sending them through email (###@vzwpix.com) rather than just sending them to your phone from the sites. It may be my paranoia of 'unknown' sites having my phone number, email, etc, but i don't want any extra telemarketers/spam that i don't have to have. For phonezoo, i just didn't provide a number (or at least a real one), which isn't required if you just save it to PC, then email to the phone (###@vzwpix.com). And if you're really paranoid, create another email for registering anyways (i used a secondary email i already had).

Here are the links to the alarms that i used:

http://www.phonezoo.com/ringtone/205379540/alarm-clock-1.htm

http://www.phonezoo.com/ringtone/90368644/alarm-clock.htm

Note about ringtones with the Kin phones: you can't rename or delete them, as many of you already know. However, when you save a ringtone of the same name onto the phone, it will overwrite the old one. Lesson was, name the ringtones to names you plan on keeping (before you save/send to the phone), although you don't have to worry too much about the actual alarm quality. If you edit it in a way you don't like, you can just re-edit the ringtone and send it as the same name to overwrite it. This helped me, where i created a ringtone that cycles exactly 2 times before the phone goes to voicemail (~9 secs, fyi. and ~24 for a single cycle)

For those 2 alarms, i just called them @Alarm 1 and @Alarm 2. The @ is so they appear at the top of the list. To my knowledge, you can't organize the ringtones into the categories of 'melodies', 'alerts', or 'alarms'. What i did instead is put a symbol in front of the name, so they appear above the list of melodies anyways. To be honest, most/all of the default melodies aren't worth much, although i find that the alerts/alarms are noises that i do like and use. For anything custom, certain symbols 'translate' correctly when transferred to the phone, including ! and @, and others that i didn't try. Ones like * and _ don't work out, the phone translates them to number sequences (_ is 95 or something like that), its just trial and error as to which actually register the symbols. Name it to what you want on the computer, and send it to the phone. You'll recieve it on the Kin, but before saving it, make sure the name is what you want it to be (symbols, caps, spacing, spelling, etc), and if theres errors, change it on the comp and re-send it.

On top of having them sorted above the default melodies, this also allows me to sort them by 'type', aka ! is alarms/alerts, and @ is ringtones. Just my custom way of sorting things, i'm sure numbers work the same too, so theres plenty to cycle through, just put them in front of the ringtone name.

I also added 3 completely silent ringtones to my phone, of different lengths (short, medium, long). On my old phone, i was used to vibrate only, so this is for if i ever decide to make only certain tones vibrate only, i can just set it to the silent ringtone, with vibrate on in the system settings.

Link:

http://www.phonezoo.com/ringtone/205318823/total-silence.htm

just edit it through phonezoo by changing the lengths, and saving them under different names.

v793jt0

Hey I was wondering if you were able to use the wi fi having data block and not be charged w/o having to turn into airplane mode???

also by blocking data online.. you can choose wether or not to be able to use mms just dont select video and picture messages

fisharefriends

v793, all of that info is stated somewhere in here, but to save you reading time, yes, you can block data successfully and use the wifi, without needing standalone/airplane mode on.

seebonbon

Hi fisharefriends,
saw your short comment about itunes and zune software and wanted to comment back.

I have itunes on our Windows XP desktop and the zune software on our laptop. I have all my music in the iTunes folder (renamed it of course), of our 1TB external hard drive. New music goes in the external
and both comps and devices can access the music (just manually drag and drop your favs to the Kin zune automatically detects whatever music is on the comp & transfers it to the software)

As for music experience, I am favoring zune more
and more... it's more fluid, animated, & aesthetically pleasing than itunes. i would even be brave to say tracks sound better through Zune.

Dwfinitely give Zune a spin! :smileyhappy:

charli74

Thanks for putting this together! We just got the Kin Twom for my son and were desperately trying to figure out how to disable the data connection. I found directions for accessing the hidden menu on the phone and I successfully disabled the data from there. However, we cannot send MMS texts with all data turned off this way, but that's not a big deal to us. While in the hidden menu, I also found that you can import and export your contacts from here.

To access the hidden menu:

Go to the Phone application and dial this number
##77647266488

This will take you to the hidden menu application, the first thing it is going to ask you is to “Type the Service Programming Code:” This code by default is: 000000

This gives you the option to select one of the following:
Field Test Menu
Authentication Key
Network Tools
Cloud Server
Other
Contacts

To block data altogether, and avoid any data charges, follow these instructions:
Select Network Tools, Network Settings and slide Allow Data Connections to off. This will not affect wifi, but data wont work anymore.

To import/export contacts:

Select Contacts and tap the button to import or export your contacts. Not sure where they go when you export them though??

**For any Mac users out there, you can successfully transfer your iTunes songs, iPhoto pictures, and videos to/from your Kin with a free software download. Find it at: http://www.markspace.com/kin/ I just downloaded it and installed it and it works like a charm!! :smileyvery-happy:

fisharefriends

seebonbon, I do it a similar way, my music files are in their own dedicated folder, and i manually import them into iTunes anyways. It was quite simple to import into Zune, just a simple directory selection (actually, worked way better than i thought it would).

I'm also aware of how to import onto the Kin, but i was more wondering about the direct access to iTunes through markspace, if it was possible from a windows comp. I don't want to manually re-create my playlists that i have from iTunes, and i have around 20 GB of music that i wouldn't want to go through to choose ~4 GB that i would want to put on my phone when i have distinct playlists that amount to ~2-3 gig that i would want on there, that i listen to. I guess more specifically, i'm looking for a way to export my playlists from iTunes into Zune, if that is possible (the iTunes transfer to the Kin is really just a workaround). If this is possible, it would allow me to continue to use just 1 program for music and not a mix between the 2. I currently just use an iPod for music, i only listen to it in the car anyways, but for future reference, if i just want to switch over to relying on my phone, it would be nice to know.

Charli, i know that the hidden programming menu is there, but i didn't want to tamper with it. As far as data blocking, if you do it from the phone, it will be a complete block, meaning losing multimedia messages (which happens to be the only way to get ringtones onto the phone, not too big of a deal for me, but for many others they will use them). If you block data through My Verizon online, or over the phone (have to get lucky with a rep that knows what they're doing..) or in-stores (how i did it), you can successfully block all data, but still be able to recieve picture/video/sound messages.

As far as the contacts import/export goes, i'm not quite sure how it works, but i know Verizon stores have software/machines that 'extract' this data, this is how they were successfully able to transfer my contacts from my old phone to the Kin phone. They direct wire connect the phones, through the machine, and i believe its just a simple format converter of some sort, takes in the old contacts in whatever format the old phone stored them in, and is able to convert them to whatever format the new phone needs. After taking the phone in for transferring my contacts, i noticed that this programming number (which i knew about before but never did anything with other than call it/enter the access # and see what it was) was dialed in the recent calls. All that stuff they do behind the closed doors..oh well. Can't say i know any of the specifics, but the contacts were transferred, which makes me happy enough. Having them backed up would be peace of mind in case my phone was lost..but as of now i don't know a way. There is a post in these forums talking about accessing the phone through Python (an open source software), but i haven't looked into it at all.

fisharefriends

Update: Here's a link to another thread, it appears the Kin Two does in fact have holes for a lanyard/wriststrap, just hidden behind a forgotten/hidden design in the battery cover.

Kin Twom lanyard holes

JCCC

I have a question.

I'm able to check my Yahoo mail using the Wifi mode. However, I was not able send out any e-mail under the e-mail app. Can anyone help.

iheartkin

I was wondering if there is a 2min reminder for missed texts and phone calls? I had this feature in all my preivous phones and was hoping this one had it also. BTW, this was a very informative review. Thanks!

fisharefriends

There is no reminder with the kin phones. i also wish that they had them, as well as further customization of sound settings that almost every phone these days have. That would include these minute reminders, custom on/off of certain sound alerts (volume, low battery, dialer, camera, etc), individual contact ringtones for not only calls, but also texts, and so on. I have created a 'wishlist' of things that are missing from the phone that i believe should be on there since most other feature phones have the capabilities. I do not know if an update will be coming to the firmware, but at the minimum, its a notice to buyers of what is and isn't on the phone, before they ask questions that have already been answered.

Kin OneM/TwoM firmware issues: Verizon/Microsoft update wishlist

rogeti

Thanks for all the info!! It would have been nice to know all of this stuff before i got it.

I was wondering if when you plug your Kin into your PC if your computer finds the hardware?I have tried to load my device but it says i need the driver software. I have called VW twice now and the first one thought it was strange that i didnt get the software and the second one had no idea about it. So they sent me to the real TECH Support and after 1 and 1/2 of waiting on hold i ahd to hang up.

And if you go to settings and --->then about the phone-----> then tap the legal in the irst part of the EULA it says everything they dont do anymore. Its kind of ridiculous.!!!

The people at verizon have no idea what they are selling and they shouldn't be able to sell something they know nothing about. I was told when i bought it that you dont need a data package and WI-FI was free. Yesterday i called about the contacts issue and the lady said WI-FI is $1.99 a MB and then today when i tried to call about the software i talked to a lady for a second and she said WI-FI was free and would not incur charges. I wanna get all of that in writing and signed by Verizon.

Its a cool phone i just dont understand why they are even selling it if they cant help you when you call and they got rid of all the things on it and they lie about what they are selling.

seebonbon

Have you downloaded the Zune software (it's free) from online yet? The computer will only recognize the phone via Zune. So get Zune downloaded first, open Zune, connect your Kin, go to "device" and your comp will see your Kin.

As for data block, go to your account online and block everything but pics & vid messaging. If you want to double make sure your wifi usage, call #DATA and verizon will send a free text with your data usage. I've used this phone for a month now and only incurred 1mb of data (that was before I manually blocked data via online). Been using wi-fi, even without airplane mode (some like to use that mode for an extra layer of data blocking).

cky

can be videos be shared when already saved? i noticed that videos can only be shared when a text message is first created, then video is selected. thanks

jbratten

Feeling stupid. How would you remove a wallpaper? Deleting the picture that was used doesn't work.

First impressions of my Kin TwoM are good. I'm very impressed with the sensitivity and accuracy of the touch screen. Way to go Sharp.

Thanks.

fisharefriends

No, there is no photo editing on the phone. While you can edit them for the wallpaper, you can't for 'regular' photos. However..with the Kin, being a microsoft phone, I find it very easy to edit them on the computer, then save them back onto the phone. I have pictures on the phone that weren't originally taken from it either..its as simple as drag and drop. The album organization is very good in my mind, with the ability to sort things in folders, even subfolders. Think of the camera as you would a normal camera; can't edit on the device, but its easy to transfer to the computer, edit them, and copy them back to the phone.

To remove the wallpaper...the best i can tell you, is overwrite it. Just create a new one over it. If you want a blank screen...take a picture of a blank screen.

kibbles35

This post has been tremendously valuable. A few notes to add:

You can lock/unlock your phone anytime by briefly pressing the power button. I use my Twom as a music player much more than as a phone, When left unlocked it is very easy to accidentally skip ahead/back, so I use this frequently.

Don't expect much in the way of firmware upgrades or additional features... this phone is what it is. MS burned Verizon by turning it's attention to the Mobile7 phones and gutting the development program on this phone - that's why there are so many obvious/curious flaws, and why it's doubtful anyone inside MS or Verizon will likely do anything except maybe patch the Backup Assistant. The greatest weakness in this phone is the inadequate user manual... over-and-over I had moments where I thought, "why can't I do this?" or "how do I do that?" only to later discover by trial and error that often I could.

That said, the KIN is a terrible smartphone, but a pretty cool feature phone: a great music player, Wi-Fi, browser, email on demand, nice camera and video. I have my email set up for manual downloading, only 1-day at a time so I can tightly control email use. While email is handy to have, I only occasionally need it on the road. I've downloaded email several times this month and am still well under 1 MB ($1.99 is much cheaper than $9.99 a month).

If you haven't done so, go to "Device" in your "My Verizon" account and click "About My Device". There's an interactive program about the (original) Kin Two. The info on the Loop page and Spot are out of date, but I learned a lot watching this and just simply playing with every page on the phone. (I just tried to open it and couldn't - it might be down temporarily or maybe Verizon is re-writing it?).

OK., my question... if I only want to download email manually and download ringers, what would be the correct data settings for me?

Finally, instead of a case I used self-adhesive velcro to attached a belt clip to the back of my KIN. Very convenient and no extra bulk from a case. So far, no issue accidentally changing the volume while listening to music :-)

fisharefriends

I'm not quite sure what you mean by data settings..what i can tell you is that you can't directly download ringtones to your phone from its browser. You have to either transfer it from another phone via MMS to your phone, send it from a ringtone website to your phone, or download it to your comp, and hten email it to your number (###@vzwpix.com) and save the ringtone from that multimedia message. And as far as ringtones go, you can't delete them. But you can overwrite them, so in other words, its more important to make sure you name it how you want than make sure the ringtone is the perfect 'cut' or quality first-time through (you can always do it again and name it the same as the one on your phone to get rid of the bad version).

Another link regarding ringtones, here is a site for editing your own custom ringtones. Its one of the best ones ive seen out there with many custom settings, but it has no ringtone downloads, just editing your own sound files. One thing, if you have some ringtone from another site that you like, just download that to your comp, and then upload it to this site for all of its customizations for your phone.

http://makeownringtone.com/

erk1092

OK, so I got the phone about two weeks ago and have loved it.

But I have this one problem. I can't send or receive picture/video/sound messages. I was able to when I first got the phone, but now I can't. I don't have a data plan, but then again the phone description said I don't need one. When I try to send a picture message it says that I need to have an internet connection. And when I try to receive a picture message it says so-and-so sent me a message but it couldn't be recieved. It's really starting to get annoying. If it turns out that I need a data plan, I'm going to really be upset and probably go off and get a different phone and I don't want to do that cause I really like this phone.

Please tell me there is a way to fix this without me having to get a data plan.

SydneyK

Erk1092, there is a way to fix this without having to get a data plan. Whoever put the block on your account blocked all data, including MMS. Call customer service and tell the rep you want to allow picture/video messages to come through. Even though this is technically data, this will count toward your text/pic/vid package if you have one, and will not incur per-MB charges.

cameritt

I think Verizon does charge for data if you access your email through their email app. I thought the app worked with wifi but ended up being charged for it, which stinks :smileysad: It's a bit ridiculous that they would put in an email app and not tell people that it will incur data charges and does not connect through wifi...

fisharefriends

It is not app-specific as to if you are charged data or not. The email app will use wifi, if the phone is connected to wifi. However, the one thing you can't do is distinguish whether you are on wifi, or on verizon's 3G network. This is nothing new; even smartphones can't distinguish them. When a wifi connection is available, it will connect, but even if you temporarily drop off of the wifi network, you will automatically fall onto a 3G connection. So, to be straightforward, make sure you BLOCK DATA. To be honest, if you were planning on using data from a data plan, there is no reason you should be owning this phone...it simply is just inferior to smartphones, which you have access to if you do purchase a data plan. However, if you don't have a data plan, and have the by-default $1.99/MB pay-per-use, i promise you don't want to see that bill if you accidentally are using the 3G network. A megabyte is...well lets just say a single video has the potential to give you skyrocketing phone bills.

To block data correctly, while still having the ability to send/recieve multimedia messages, read the post on doing so (in this thread). It really helps to read what has already been posted. I organized the FAQ into sections to make it easier to find, it doesn't take much effort to find the answers you are looking for.

erk1092

SydneyK, I just checked online to see if we have picture messaging blocked and it says we don't. It says we have unlimited picture/video messaging. Is MMS different? What is MMS?

Tanks for the help! :smileyhappy:

SydneyK

MMS (multimedia service) is the same as picture/video messaging. Hmm,may still think you may need to call, because it has to be set up just right to block data but allow MMS. This is further complicated if you have an old plan, but it can be done. Good luck!

rookieuser

WOW thank you so much for all the info. I do have a question thou. Is the Kin 2M capable of having text messages automatically deleted?

fisharefriends

No, text messages aren't automatically deleted, at least i do not think so. You have to delete them manually, and can only do so whole 'conversations' at a time (can't delete individual messages). However, there's virtually no limit to how many messages it can hold, so there isn't much reason to delete them. On my old phone, the inbox limit was 100, so having an auto-delete feature was great, but with the Kin phones, it will only run out of memory when the phone runs out of memory. And thats hard to do with texts...they are ~5 KB in size, and 1000KB ~ 1 MB, and 1000 MB ~ 1 GB, and your phone has around 6.5 GB of memory. Even if you do load it full of music and pictures, chances are you are going to have leftover space just because the average picture and music file is usually >5MB, which means you'll have around 5 MB left over, which can store...plenty of texts. If you are worried about running out of memory from texts, just make sure to keep a little space free on the phone (50 MB should be more than enough). I plan on always keeping more than a GB free, for photos and other uses like this. Once the phone is out of memory, i do not know if it will auto-delete the oldest message, or if it will just prompt you, but i don't imagine i will ever get there.

kibbles35

Can anyone tell me what my problem could be? I've tried repeatedly to send myself ringtones via email as discussed previously - but nothing reaches my phone. Plain text are fine, but any attempt to add a tone is removed - and when I use the ###@vzwpix.com - nothing happens at all - although their "My Current Usage" is diligently keeping track of every attempt . When I try ####@vtext.com or ###vzw@vtext.com the text comes across but with the tones are marked "removed". Pictures, however, appear to be OK.

Verizon has variously told me; the files were too large (only about 60 kb), or that I can't send mp3's to this phone (other people have), but to try mp4's (didn't work either). We even tried sending it via regular email, the email comes in and the attachments say they've been downloaded but "Can't view file type".

I spent more than an hour on the phone with Verizon and they have no idea what the issue is. I have a decent signal, wifi and email - text and photos come across, but not tones. Any ideas?

fredl11

Do you have anything regarding Bluetooth.? I can find none available the are really compatible with the Kin's and it is very frustrating.

v793jt0

the motoralo h700 bluetooth works with the kin

fisharefriends

What exactly do you mean you can't find any bluetooth device that works with the kins? What type of device are you looking for? headsets? car systems? The nice thing about bluetooth, is it is very technology-dependent, which leads to compatibility coming from the type of device you have, not whether an individual device will work with a specific phone or not. If you want to learn the exact specs that the Kin supports, read the user manual, or even the data sheet on the website of the phone (from the purchasing screen)

In short, the phone supports headsets and car systems, but cannot do phone-to-phone connection, or transfer namecards or sound, movie, picture files in that fashion. When we purchased new phones (my family plan), we received 2 free bluetooth headsets (jawbone icons) as part of some thanksgiving deal, and i know those work with the phone. I also know that stereo headsets work with the kins. As far as connecting to car systems, i have read that it does work with most. However, one thing to keep in mind, the phone itself does not have a voice-dialing functionality to it. You know that annoying 'please say a command' random button on the side of every other phone? So you can't do this with a bluetooth device, and it isn't completely 'hands-free'. However, one thing to note, if your car/system has its own phonebook or commands, then it should be able to use them and thus be hands-free.

In general, this phone's bluetooth capability is somewhat limited compared to most phones due to the lack of phone-to-phone file transfers/contact transfers and also no voice commands, but unless you're a dependent bluetooth user, it shouldn't be too big of a deal. As far as headphones/headsets go, i'm under the impression that nearly all of them will work. If you are checking compatibility from the device websites, it is understandable if this phone isn't on whatever list they have compiled; this phone isn't well known. But like i said earlier, it isn't dependent on specific devices, it is dependent on the types of connections the phone supports, and the type that each individual bluetooth device requires.

I actually just ended up copying this from the verizon sales site:

the kin supports: Headset Profile, Hands–free Profile, Stereo (A2DP), AVRCP (Audio/Visual Remote Control Profile), GAVDP (Generic Audio/Video Distribution Profile), AVDTP (Audio/Visual Distribution Profile) , AVCTP (Audio Visual Control Transport Protocol Profile)

check your device to see if it is one of these 'standard' configurations.

jfraser1

I have a Phonezoo account, but every time I create a ringtone and have it sent to my phone it saves as unknown. Is there any way to change this? I've tried renaming the ringtones on phonezoo. I also can't figure out how to change the names after they are saved.

fisharefriends

Sorry, i'm afraid that you can't change the names of hte ringtones on the phone, nor delete them, unless you reset your phone.

However, what i would do from phonezoo (or any other ringtone site) is instead of sending them to your phone from the site, send them to your PC. On your computer, you can rename the file however you want, and then from there, open up any email account on your comp, and send an 'email' to your phone with the ringtone as an attachment (to ##yournumber##@vzwpix.com). Your phone will recieve it as an MMS, with the ringtone attached. Then, you should be able to see its name before you save it.

Do note, that you can't delete or rename ringtones from the phone, but you can overwrite them by sending another file with the exact (has to be exact) same name. In other words, before saving the ringtone, the most important part is to make sure it is named how you want it to be (caps, symbols, etc). If the ringtone itself is wrong/bad, you can always send another to the phone with the same name and it will overwrite the ringtone. If you're going to be changing ringtones often and want many 'temporary' ringtones on your phone, what you can do is just call them Ringtone_1, and then from there, just overwrite them with other ringtones as you feel like you want to 'delete' the old ones.

I also like putting a symbol in front of the titles, so that way they are at the top of the list (@Ringtone_1, for example). Only some of hte symbols will work, others will appear on your phone as a number sequence. So before you save them, you can make sure that they are the right title in the MMS you receive, and only save them if that corresponding symbol actually translated to a symbol (i know the @, !, and ^ work for sure; you can try others if you want/need). I use this sequence as a 'sorting' method on my phone, with the 3 symbols listed above as 'category' dividers (like one for ringtones/melodies, another for alarms, and another for alerts, etc).

gooseberries

In the browser, I can't get any websites up, like facebook, google, etc. Online I blocked all data except pic and vid.. I have my wi-fi on and it recognizes my wireless. Have I blocked too much? on the phone, should i have bluetooth and data roaming on or off? I'm pretty clueless to all this stuff...but this forum has been tremendously helpful!

gooseberries

so when you went to the hidden menu, did you successfully import your contacts to your phone?

gooseberries

i may have found answer after I posted this...the way I intrepeted an earlier post, it had said to go online and block everything except pics and vids, including "block all data"....but then a later post said to block everything BUT "block all data" and pics and vids... so once I unblocked "block all data" I was able to go to browser and get websites up. Now I just have to figure out if I am getting charged for that!

fisharefriends

gooseberries, I'm pretty sure you've done it right (blcok all but pics, and 'all data'). There are some ways to quickly check if data is blocked:

1. Go into your browser, and try opening up web pages with wifi turned OFF. If pages don't open, that that means you successfully blocked data. Do note though, that certain 'simple' pages are saved in the cache, and will still 'open' regardless. They aren't actually loading from the internet, the page layout was just simply saved to your phone and it just pulls up that same stored site. So simple sites like google, and whatnot will open. Just make sure you try a site that is a little more complex (or just a new site you've never visited), and not just Google's search page.

2. Go online to your My Verizon account, and check the data usage from there. If you successfully blocked data, it will come up with an error message (in the screenshot).

3. Finally, check your bills. I would be conservative about your use the first month, just in case, but in theory, if (1) trying to open a webpage with wifi turned off doesn't work, then you should be safe.

I'm just providing you with ways of making sure data is blocked, but really only doing one of them is enough of a check. Its just safe measure to make sure all 3 are functioning like they would with data successfully blocked. And lastly, if you're trying to send MMS, just test them after you apply the blocks to make sure they still work.

As for bluetooth and data roaming, these settings have no effect on the wifi/data usage. Bluetooth, is used for bluetooth devices. The data roaming setting means that your phone can 'roam' on other networks, like say, in an emergency, you can 'bootleg' off AT&T's networks, but do remember that roaming has an extra charge, on top of the data charges. I perma-leave this one off, cause i can't think of any time i need it.

As far as the hidden menu goes, i haven't done much in there. The contacts can be imported and exported from within, but the problem is the file that is saved from exporting them is locked somewhere within the phone that you can't access. And importing works if you went into a Verizon store and had them import your contacts into the phone, what it does is saves a file onto your phone. When you import the contacts, it loads that file into your contacts. Just beware, if you've already imported your contacts and you push the import button again, it will import them again, and you will have duplicates of every contact. I unknowingly, accidentally did this, and spend the next hour going through and deleting the doubles.

vaenillaa

Quick question .. about how many messages does the KIN hold? I get frustrated when trying to read through old conversations and half of my outgoing texts have been deleted. When I look at my friend's iPhone, her conversations with me go back to November or December. How does the messaging work in that aspect with the KIN?

fisharefriends

It holds as many as the phone memory can handle. So, in other words, its practically unlimited. A message is what, a few kb in size? And hte phones hold 4 or 8 GB..yeah, i'm pretty sure you'll be able to hold as many as you want, till you end up getting a new phone in the future. Even 50 MB will probably last you forever..to an unnoticeable extent.

vaenillaa

But it doesn't have a max text message capacity? Does yours have texts that are multiple months old?

fisharefriends

Nope, no limit. It has the same capabilities as most smartphones out there, in this sense. It isn't limited to 100 texts in the inbox, like most other verizon feature phones. It has the very first text i sent since owning the phone. But along the same lines of text organization, remember that you can only sort texts by threading, there is no standard by-date sorting.

vaenillaa

That's fine by me .. I like threaded messages so I was thrilled when I found out that's how the messaging was set up on the KIN. I have an option for threaded or by-date organization of texts on my phone right now (enV touch .. awful phone) and I've never used the by-date option. My KIN should be arriving in the mail tomorrow so hopefully I'll like it! :smileyhappy: Thank you so much for your help!

v793jt0

When you leave the special characters pressed, like the n you can get its varition i.e. you get ñ on the txt ... however i found out that whoever you send that to wont be able to read it that character and even if you send a txt to yourself with the special character you cant read it so its not because of having a diff phone!

fisharefriends

It's because SMS simply doesn't support the characters. However, for email use, or online communication of whatever other methods, these characters register (untested..but i'm about 95% sure).

v793jt0

yeah it works with email ...

Does anyone know how you can download a certificate or any file into the phone in order to be able to use WPA2.

Or know if the phone can handle WPA with 802.1x authentication, also called WPA Enterprise

mabehr

First off, thank you for all the time and info put into reviewing this phone. I appreciate it as I am looking for a wifi only phone (no data package) and this seems like the only one out there.

I do have a question that I haven't seen asked:

Does the KinTwom support Windows Media Files? I mean the type where you go to a webpage, click

on a stream and it downloads as an mms:// page as a Windows Media file.

Any clues on that?

Robyn8814

Any idea if there is a way to turn off the sound when you are dialing the phone?

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