Microsoft KIN Emerges From The Dead, Headed Back To Verizon

Well, this is certainly coming out of left field.

You might recall the demise of Microsoft and Verizon’s KIN One and KIN Two a few months back. The reason for that of course being that the costs of their data plans were on par with the big name smartphones. Things were so bad that there were rumors that Microsoft had only sold around 500 or so of the devices.

Microsoft and Verizon then pulled the plug.

Now it seems both KIN’s are making a comeback on Big Red, although it won’t be in the same fashion as last time.

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According to a report by PPCGeeks, the KIN reincarnations won’t have a data plan attached to them but you will still be able to use Zune Pass over Wi-Fi . The refreshed KINs, known as KIN 1m and KIN 2m also won’t feature the data intensive “Loop” which was one of the most marketed and touted pieces of the software the first time around.

So essentially, it’s the same hardware with dumbed down software with no data plan. It’s possible that these might even drop sometime this quarter so if you were looking to a KIN One or KIN Two the first time around, you might have your chance very, very shortly.

Anyone else get the feeling Microsoft is trying to avoid burying these in the desert?