Please help me choose - KIN ONEm or TWOm?!

[CinnamonSwirl]

My current phone is a four year old Samsung (I believe it was the prototype for the Alias2 - similar dual-flip design.)  I loved it but it's malfunctioning like crazy and I'm trying to decide what my next phone will be.  I want something a little different this time.

I like the KIN phones but it's tough to choose between the two styles. Anyone have any input for me? I use it primarily for texting.  I also like music and changing up the wallpaper, ringtones etc.  And I do take lots of pictures.  Thanks all.

[fisharefriends]

I'm glad you're considering the Kin phones. They are fantastic feature phones, i am very glad i own a Kin Twom. If you want to knwo why you are having a hard time: it is because the phones are nearly identical. The only differences are:

• pricing: Kin 1 is $20 with new contract, 2 is $50, but if you really think about it, that is very minute compared to a contract price
• Hardware: the shapes of the phones are different. Kin 1 is smaller, while 2 is more rectangular and longer. I preferred the longer phone just because it is more 'conventional' and i'd be more used to it, but because of both the phone's lack of on-screen keyboards, or even keypads, you need 2 hands to text witht he kin 2, while 1 will be good with the Kin 1. So, it depends one the shape and size you prefer mainly.
• Camera: Kin 2 has an 8 MP camera, and 720p HD video. Kin 1 has 5 MP camera, and no video camera (i think).
• Memory: Kin 2 has 8 GB, and Kin 1 has 4 GB.

Apart from that, unless i missed something, they're virtually identical. I preferred the Kin 2 because of the higher specs and more 'traditional' shape, but if you don't mind the slightly worse camera/no video camera, and less memory, and prefer the smaller shape (mainly being able to text w/ 1 hand), i'd suggest the Kin 1. I personally think the Kin 1 looks more 'feminine', but that's just me.

Here's a quick link to a Review/FAQ that i wrote a while back regarding the Kin Twom, it is quite long, but it will tell you all the 'off-book' quirks as well as features of the Kin phones (their software 99% identical), and i hope you buy the phone that fits you best!

[SydneyK]

Welcome to the boards, CinnamonSwirl. As fisharefriends mentioned, either of the Kin devices is a great feature phone choice and the software is identical. The FM radio and Zune player (the best feature, IMO) will work equally well on both. Here are a few more thoughts on each:

Kin ONEm Pros:

• Personally, I prefer how the ONEm feels in hand and I think it's cute, but I'm partial to portrait sliders. It seems to make the best use of space around the keys, whereas the design on the TWOm seems to waste some space in that area. The ONEm's size makes it very pocketable, although it is thicker than the TWOm.
• You may have a steadier hand while snapping pics on the ONEm, simply because the display is less apt to slide up while pressing the physical camera key, because of its design.
• You can purchase the ONEm for $120 off contract, which is the best deal I've seen on a feature phone of any type.
• Although the ONEm is technically designed to be used one-handed, keep in mind that it doesn't have auto-capitalization. So, if you're big on correct sentence structure, you'll occasionally need both hands anyway to press the cap key while typing.

Kin TWOm Pros:

• If you plan to store a lot of songs and pictures, or even put a video or two on your Kin, keep in mind that out of the box about 1.5GB is already used by your contacts and the preloaded apps. So with the ONEm, you'll only have about 2.5GB to work with, vs. about 6.5GB on the TWOm.
• Browsing will be better on the TWOm. The display on the ONEm is too small to comfortably view Web pages. You can use mobile versions of sites, but it just won't be that enjoyable.
• Recording high-def video is a nice feature on the TWOm.
• Last, as fisharefriends posted, the TWOm has a more conventional form. If you get a ONEm, it will certainly attract attention, good or bad, simply because it's so different. The TWOm looks like lots of other smartphones and feature phones out there, so everyone in sight won't be asking you what it is.

GOOD LUCK DECIDING!

[CinnamonSwirl]

 It's amazing to me how much time you and many others put into helping people on this community site.  Thank you so much for the help.

I actually went down to the Verizon store and asked to see both Kin phones. They had them tucked away in the back room and no longer out on display, so I had to get help and ask if they still had them! 

I liked the feel and keyboard of the 2m better, so I think I'm leaning that direction.

However, after reading so many of the posts on here, I do have a question about ringtones.  Most of the other drawbacks to the phone don't bother me at all, but I do like having some good ringtones on a phone. The sites like myxer and phonezoo don't actually have real songs do they? It seems like when I visited them they had covers of songs and weird mixes. Or maybe I'm wrong about this?

I'm just wondering if there is a way to get ringtones of actual songs that I like, not just strange renditions of them.

Also, I saw some posts complaining about wallpaper that I was a little confused about. Can you use any photos you take as wallpaper? Was the complaint that there aren't many pre-loaded choices? Or that you can't change it at all? 

One more question: can you change the sound the keyboard makes when texting?

Thanks again.

[fisharefriends]

About the ringtones: with those sites, you can also upload your own sound files (including 'real' songs). From there, you can clip, edit, and create your own ringtones (also free of charge). A site i would recommend for this is http://makeownringtone.com/. This site has the most customizations out of any of the sites i've tried, but it also has simplified edits, if you just want to make a quick ringtone. I'd suggest keeping them short (under 30 secs), since that is the length of a traditional ringtone.

As far as wallpaper goes: I think what you are being confused about is what the 'definition' of wallpaper people are referring to. Since you tried out the phone in-stores, i'm sure you noticed that the icons for 'apps' are large and cover the entire screen. So technically, there is no wallpaper for the phone. However, the wallpaper that i consider a wallpaper is the photo that appears on the phone-lock screen. This can be changed, from any of the pictures on your phone. It can be zoomed, and cropped from the phone, but cannot be rotated. A trick to 'fix' pictures that are rotated the wrong way, is just to open the photos from your computer (default program is windows photo viewer), and then just rotate the picture as necessary from there, and then upload it to your phone.  The phones come with no default wallpapers whatsoever, with the exception of the very first 'have a good day' or something like that, picture. I'm pretty sure you'd rather have your own picture as the wall-paper though, so i doubt that will be an issue.

When you say sound of keyboard when texting: i wasn't aware that the keyboard even made a sound when texting (i'm assuming you mean a sound feedback, not the actual physical 'click' of the keys). That could be because i have the 'system sounds' option turned off, i never really liked any phone sounds so as long as they're off, i'm happy.

[Limestone]

Just wanted to add that the Onem can also do video capture.

[fisharefriends]

You're right, it can, my mistake. Just a quick question though, what quality is the onem's video capture? It doesn't seem to list it on any of hte specs.

[SydneyK]

The Kin Onem is VGA video capture, vs. high-definition on the Kin Twom.

[CinnamonSwirl]

Thanks for your thorough response, fisharefriends. That cleared up a lot of what I was wondering.

Although I did look at the phones in-store, it basically only gave me a sense of what they felt like in my hands because the store did not have the phones hooked up to the network, so they wouldn't turn on. I didn't get to play around with the functions or anything like that, which was disappointing.

Here's another question, more of a generalized topic- I know there's been some back and forth about transferring contacts, and it sounds like a verizon rep should be able to help me get those transferred in the store to my new phone. However, what about pictures and videos? Most of my pictures I've emailed to myself and saved on the computer, so no big deal. But I've taken some videos that my phone won't allow me to send. I've not been able to send videos that are over 10 seconds in length, for whatever reason. Will I be able to transfer those? Or is there a way to get them saved somewhere? I don't want to lose them forever when my old phone gets shut off, but I'm afraid I won't have a choice.   

[fisharefriends]

I do have some bad news, in-stores, you no longer can transfer contacts to the Kin phones. I got a warranty phone a couple weeks back, and was planning on re-transferring the contacts, but i found out that the machines verizon distributed to local stores have since then been removed. Check out that FAQ page i wrote, and in there, there is a link to another person's video review of the phone (via youtube). Those should be very helpful (aside from his wifi information; but that is explained in text in that thread) in visually exploring the phone.

yes, you can send pictures via email. And yeah, larger videos will not transfer in that matter. However, you can send your files on your phone directly to a computer. What is the model of your phone? Does it have a microSD memory card slot? If so, you can simply put them on a card, and then put hte card into the computer and transfer the files that way. Also, most (if not all) phones have hte ability to connect to a computer via USB. You can also pull the files off that way. Just a quick note though, once your phone is 'deactivated' and you get a new one, everything on that old device will still be there, and everything will still work, it will just be disconnected from the verizon network (aka phone/text/data services). So depending on time conveniences, you can do all of the above in whatever order you like, if you don't currently have a memory card, you can gobuy one after you activate a new phone. Also, you've been reading around for Kin reviews, and you'll know that they don't have an external memory card slot, which is a pretty big downside, but it has that ability to connect to the computer via Zune player, similar to how an iPod connects through iTunes. So you can still transfer files that way.

And one last note: i don't know how good your old phone camera quality was, but with many higher-end cameras (including the Kin phones), if you send pics through MMS, they will automatically reduce the quality to reduce the size of hte files. If that is the case, and your old camera had a better camera (i'm just guessing, but probably any >2.0 MP), you may want to resend those to a computer, through the usb cable or memory card to get the full, high-quality photos.