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How many people actually bought this, I heard from 3 or 4 verizon stores near me that they have yet to sell a kin. If you did purchase one is it your only phone or your main phone? Really curious considering the more obvious choices out there, even on verizon.
I'd want one, but they're not available in Europe. And it would be my second phone, since i've got a Nexus already. I REALLY want to toy with WP7.
I bought a Kin Two. This phone is awesome. I won't go through a whole review or anything about it but I can say that I'm loving it. It really is a simplistic phone. I came from an iPhone 3gs, to a Palm Pre, to a Droid Eris, finally to the Kin Two all in 5 months (believe me, you dont want to hear that story). In any case, coming from so many phones with so much functionality I'm really happy to get such a simple change. It may not do 40 bajillion things, but what it does, it does really well. Let me know if you have any actually question about the phone or the OS itself and I will be happy to expand on it.
I actually got one in the mail for free. I haven't activated it yet, but so far it's a pretty cool device judging from what I can do over WiFi. It lacks games, but I've heard they are coming. The music quality is comparable to a Zune (which has superb audio quality) when played over proper speakers/headphones (IE not the phone's external speakers). There's a good deal more I want to toy with, but I have to get it activated first.
You guys are really lucky, getting free phones and all that. I have to pay good money just to toy with these things...
NeoS2007 said:
You guys are really lucky, getting free phones and all that. I have to pay good money just to toy with these things...
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Click to collapse
The reason I got it for free is that I am a member of projectkin.com, which helped MS shape the device. They had a drawing on the site for 5 people to win a KIN device. I happened to win.
Link9228 said:
The reason I got it for free is that I am a member of projectkin.com, which helped MS shape the device. They had a drawing on the site for 5 people to win a KIN device. I happened to win.
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Click to collapse
Nice, congrats.
Ontopic: I wouldn't buy it, there is no development in the UI yet.
I for one would probably won't buy it either, but I definitely want to toy with it. So I might as well save up for it.
I just saw the Kin1 at my local Frys for $75 no contract. I came home and started looking to see if there are any hacks to get Android or WinMo on it. So far I found nothing so it looks like I won't be buying one.
gedster314 said:
I just saw the Kin1 at my local Frys for $75 no contract. I came home and started looking to see if there are any hacks to get Android or WinMo on it. So far I found nothing so it looks like I won't be buying one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its sad right? I wish I was better at hacking phones!
I just
picked up the Kin Onem from Verizion $19.99. Been enjoying the heck out of it BUT Bluetooth has me scratching my head. From what I have been able to find out, the Kin will not transfer phone book and will not use Voice dial in car kits. HUH!! Whats to use of BT if not hands free.
There is a possibility that if the car kit has it's own phone book that will work. The phone works fine in my G8GT but no with my Garmin 1490T or Motorola T505. Both receive calls fine but you need to actually place a call from the phone for outgoing.
OH Well for $20 I'll live with it.
I did, sorta ...
Seems like most are giving up on the KIN for valid reasons (volume of devices, Vz/Ms support, etc.). I specifically selected the KIN Two for another reason, so if your interested in some light reading ...
I have poor hearing. Hence I select my phone based on that. I currently use a Samsung Sch-a670 (circa 2004?). Its loud, has excellent coverage and I can text every once in a while. And quote a Vz service tech "Its bullet proof." I had one go through an entire wash cycle in my pants pocket and three days later, after it dried out it worked. After hitting it with worse than a "bullet", I bought the same phone on ebay for $12, works great.
So why the Kin Two. I read an article in the NY Times that said Vz will end the "New Every Two" plan. I really had no reason to upgrade but I figured I'd look as I had a freebie coming.
When I read about the Kin I got an idea. In the summer, I frequent the Beach with many friends. We all have a great time including lots of food, party and, of course tunes. My old mp3 player was failing (buttons from the sand). Problem was this was an old Sansa M260 that uses AAA batteries. Many days we are on the beach 12 hours. Most MP3 players will go dead in the middle of the day. With the M260, I just pop in another AAA.
So, the Kin has the sound of a Zune, a 8 mp camera and takes HD video. I figure with all the radios turned off (for good-Airplane mode), the battery would last a couple of days playing MP3s. So I loaded the Zune software, ratified the ID3 tags in my 4 G music collection and have a great new MP3 player. (Zune application expounded on id3 tag abnormalities in my music files not seen using copy and paste to the M260).
Some things I've found with the Zune ...
(1) It would always come up with the "activate" process, an annoying first step. There is a character sequence to bypass this (SHIFT+ALT+L) but you have to do this every startup. I turned the radio on, activated once (*228) then turned the radio off and reactivated my Samsung. Now the Kin starts up directly to the Home apps page.
(2) The battery was nearly discharged when I got the phone. Charged to 90% in a couple hours. Took two days of non-use to get to 100%. Now it gets to 100% fairly quickly. First time battery issue?
(3) For anyone not using the Zune software for mp3, picture, video library, it's a pretty nice application, does a nice job managing the media on the Kin Two - syncing is great. Cons: its large, its no roadrunner. But with any recent hardware, thos are non-issues. In perspective, I have and will never again load iTunes on my PC.
(4) WI-fi works and is easy to set up if you set-up your router. Make sure wi-fi is on (settings, wireless controls), select "other" enter your network name (SSID), select the encryption type used on your router and enter the encryption key. If your cable/FIOS/telephone guy set up your router, it may auto detect (no wireless security) or you may need to call customer service to get the wi-fi security settings.
I've rearranged the Home screen based on my planned usage. The only other thing I like to do is change the welcome/ending screens when I power the device. But i think that requires modding the firmware rather than a simple file download. From what I've gathered on these boards that ain't happening - the phone will fade away as quickly as it appeared (has once already). But I'll be happily dancing on the dunes for at least the year warranty.
Regards ...
Actually, I think this phone is selling rather decently as a feature phone. It shouldn't be surprising, because it easily out-guns Verizon's other feature phones in terms of hardware, it's the only one that has wi-fi (besides the one-m), it easily has a better camera, a larger touch screen, better processor, and more onboard storage than anything sold in their feature phone fleet. The main things that turn people off to this phone now are the stupid lack of common features like no forwarding messages, no timestamp on every message, no microSD card slot, the bluetooth doesn't work, no VZ Backup assistant or for that matter anyway to input your contacts any other way than manually. I have this phone, and for a feature phone, it absolutely owns, but it should do SO much more. It can't even view MS documents, I mean, seriously Microsoft? A document viewer shouldn't be too much to ask for. I agree, millstonemike, the built-in Zune is great. It's one of the redeeming features of this phone, in my opinion. I am never going back to my iPod or iTunes.
i just bought one for company testing... id love to see custom roms on it, especially with more feature filled bluetooth.
Just ordered a KIN TwoM
I have been using my Verizon Razr for just over 4 years now. I've been thinking about getting an Android smartphone, but in the end I just didn't want to pay $30 / month / line for the required data plan.
When I found that the Kin TwoM has web browsing via WiFi, and no data plan requirements, I was instantly sold.
I haven't gotten the phone yet, so can't comment much further. I really hope that more people will try this phone and that there will be some progress on developing the KIN platform.
Sent from my KIN
This Kin TWOm is pretty cool. I`m still getting used to it, but so far no complaints.
Regarding importing contacts, I took my old RAZR and my new Kin into a Verizon store and they transferred the contacts for me in about 10 minutes. Piece of cake.
Jon
-Sent from my Kin TWOm
Has anyone else noticed the terrible sound quality with Pandora on the G2?
Apparently there is a known issue with Pandora running on Froyo devices such as the EVO but an OTA update fixed this problem. (I had an HTC Evo so I would know)
I also had an Epic 4G running android 2.1 and Pandora sounded great. But now i'm back on another Froyo device and it sounds like crap.
The link below states there is a problem on Froyo devices but we need to contact a "Support Team" to get this fixed.
http://blog.pandora.com/faq/contents/10002.html
Any help related to this matter would be gladly appreciated.
This issue is not really on the Pandora team's hands, rather the handling of AAC+ by android 2.2. If you read around on here if you are rooted there are some temp changes you can make, but for the most part it's a waiting game for an OTA update for the G2 with this fix in it.. *shrug*
So I wrote a message to HTC regarding Pandora and Froyo on the G2 and HTC replied back with this...
Dear Steven,
I understand how important it is for your Pandora application to function properly and I apologize for any inconvenience and frustration this has caused you.
You will need to contact Pandora to inquire if an update will be released to resolve this issue. Since HTC does not support third party applications you will need to contact the manufacturer of the application for more information. An update was released for the EVO and the Nexus One however it was Pandora that released this update for the devices. Pandora will need to release another update for the G2 if necessary.
You may also need to check the Market for updates for the Pandora application.
Sincerely,
Kathleen
HTC
I wonder what Pandora is going to say when I email them
OK I thought it was just me that noticed--well I guess it's the phone itself.
Here was my setup:
I run my G2 through an 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male cable to my headunit aux port. The quality is pretty bad even with the High Quality on in Pandora. I'm comparing this to the Bold 9700 which I used to have and did the same thing. I'm not much of an audiophile but it doesn't take one to notice the difference in sound quality.
I wish my headunit had A2DP before I bought it. I didn't even think about that feature... :/
Edit:
I still have yet to try out regular MP3s on the G2 through the same setup but with the Media player. Haven't had the chance.
I used both Bluetooth and Headphone to listen to Pandora and thorugh both feeds the sound quality is bad.
I'm not audiophile either but like you said, it shouldn't take one to notice the difference in quality from other phones.
I had an iPhone 4 and the Samsung Epic 4G (Pre-froyo) and pandora sounded amazing on both of them.
I have a music streaming app as well and have found that in general 2.2 devices really hate to stream. Especially using 3g one stream in particular I am using will die instantly (throws serious error codes at me in logs) on a nexus using 3g but will last indefinitely using wifi. I hope there is an OTA to fix it because my boss is breathing down my neck
So I e-mail Pandora and they tell me that HTC has to release an OTA update.
I hate being given the run around. I Just hope there is a release soon or something is in the works to fix this.
My pandora streams sound pretty good, however I've only used it over Wi-fi..... havent tried it over 3G/4G.....
Yes the sound on Pandora is awful, I deleted it since I use Slacker more anyway. The sound from Slacker is perfect.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
Hello, I've been tablet shopping and i found an A500 for $300 refurb. Best deal i can find around.
I want to buy it, but i'd like to ask a few questions first.
First off. It advertises as a Honeycomb tablet. Will there be an OTA ICS update waiting for me when i set it up?
If so, How is ICS on this device? Is it buggy? does everything work? Or will i be constantly rooting/roming to get it to work properly?
If i have to root/rom, How is it? Easy? difficult? oneclick? I know my phone was a pain, but another one i did was a snap. Wanted to know how easy it is to rom this device?
How is video playback? One of the main things i wish to do is play movies/videos. mainly; Netflix, Streaming, and .avi and mp4's. How is playback? I can't stand choppy video or audio-lag. So this is pretty important to me.
Also, Some basic performance reviews would be great. not the main purpose of this thread, but hey, any information is helpful.
I was looking between this and the EeePad transformer. Basically within $20 of eachother.
Thank you.
FourForty said:
Hello, I've been tablet shopping and i found an A500 for $300 refurb. Best deal i can find around.
I want to buy it, but i'd like to ask a few questions first.
First off. It advertises as a Honeycomb tablet. Will there be an OTA ICS update waiting for me when i set it up?
If so, How is ICS on this device? Is it buggy? does everything work? Or will i be constantly rooting/roming to get it to work properly?
If i have to root/rom, How is it? Easy? difficult? oneclick? I know my phone was a pain, but another one i did was a snap. Wanted to know how easy it is to rom this device?
How is video playback? One of the main things i wish to do is play movies/videos. mainly; Netflix, Streaming, and .avi and mp4's. How is playback? I can't stand choppy video or audio-lag. So this is pretty important to me.
Also, Some basic performance reviews would be great. not the main purpose of this thread, but hey, any information is helpful.
I was looking between this and the EeePad transformer. Basically within $20 of eachother.
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
depending where you live you will most likely have ics waiting for you most places have it now ics runs nicely hadn't had any bugs with it so far the video playback is great the only time it starts to lag for me is when 1080p is being streamed to a TV ......rooting and romming is easy enough after root flashing custom roms is about 3 clicks from cmw lol rooting i cant say now i mine was rooted before ics but there's lots of tutorials performance wise it can be over clocked to about 1.5ghz but even not over clocked i hadn't found a game that will make it lag yet even N.O.V.A 3 with its online multi player and sweet graphics xD
Its not all amazing though there are some problems
1.some tablets don't have the best wifi saying even in the same room as the router they get one block of signal i think to be an old Gen problem though....i have surprisingly great wifi connection????
2.The Video recording is TERRIBLE on honeycomb not the video but the sound is all congested and gross,but if you do update it there has been BIG improvements with ics
3.does not like Bluetooth headsets with a mic input it will pair but not connect with most of them ,but some still work xD...
One more thing there is also built in GPS not needing wifi and great for gaming and modding so i think...external 3g Hawaii usb adapter have had success working micro sd works up to 64gb and external hard rive up to 2tb xD good luck hope this helped
FourForty said:
Hello, I've been tablet shopping and i found an A500 for $300 refurb. Best deal i can find around.
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Click to collapse
You can beat that price easily. The last one I bought was auction style and got it for $210 shipped. It was the 8gb version. The 16gb can be had for a little more than that if you don't mind playing the auction game. Personally, I'd never pay more than $250 shipped for a refurb. I expect the refurbs to get to the ~$200 price point by the end of the summer.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw...+a500&LH_FS=1&LH_BIN=1&_sop=15&_osacat=171485
As far as the rest... What Gears said.
Thank you both for the replies.
The WiFi connection concerns me a bit. But not a deal-breaker for sure.
Glad to hear video playback is good. As that's most likely going to be my main use of this tablet.
I don't use bluetooth headsets, so not too worried about that.
As for beating the price. Here in Canada, That's literally the best price i could find. Newegg.ca has it for $268. so after tax/fees, it's $301.
I'm not a fan of buying used electronics off ebay. Too much risk. and a boat load of hassle with returns/paypal. well, almost all are final sales. And i don't want to get screwed.
At least with sites such as newegg i get a warranty.
Even with that being said. I used your link and found one on ebay. Currently winning at $122. But with 6-days left. I doubt it will be a good deal. my max is $225, so we'll see how long that lasts.
FourForty said:
Thank you both for the replies.
The WiFi connection concerns me a bit. But not a deal-breaker for sure.
Glad to hear video playback is good. As that's most likely going to be my main use of this tablet.
I don't use bluetooth headsets, so not too worried about that.
As for beating the price. Here in Canada, That's literally the best price i could find. Newegg.ca has it for $268. so after tax/fees, it's $301.
I'm not a fan of buying used electronics off ebay. Too much risk. and a boat load of hassle with returns/paypal. well, almost all are final sales. And i don't want to get screwed.
At least with sites such as newegg i get a warranty.
Even with that being said. I used your link and found one on ebay. Currently winning at $122. But with 6-days left. I doubt it will be a good deal. my max is $225, so we'll see how long that lasts.
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FYI & I don't know if they are available in Canada, but a friend & I each picked up refurbished a500s from the referenced "Official Acer Store" on eBay. They came with a 90 day warranty. It was about 4 months ago and they were $267US then. Upon receipt both appeared to be brand new. Mine has had absolutlely no issues. My friend's developed a couple of horizontal colored lines after about 3 weeks. The Acer Store folks quickly arranged for a prepaid return and sent him another immaculate appearing unit in about a week. It has been flawless. None of the 3 units had any difficulty with Timmy Dean's v3.2.1, HC downgrade , the ICS OTA, or bootloader or ROM mods. Whatever you decide, goodluck. The a500 is a super piece of hardware and these forums are a goldmine of information and hours of reading pleasure!
I bought mine around valentines day off eBay for $280 refurbished, a 16gb version. Got the square trade warranty for $40. The tablet was fine for about a week and then my screen started coming up along the top/bottom edges. So I shipped it back. The second one has had no problem. I rooted, installed recovery, custom rom, and backed up on the first one. When my 2nd tablet came I was able to just root, install recovery and recover from my SD backup with no problem.
I love this tablet! Personally, I choose it over the Asus ones that were out at the time I got mine. From what I've heard, the Asus and other tablets don't allow a constant HDMI out like the Acer. They only utilize it when an app calls it. That could have been a stock rom issue, but even then if u have a newer tf101 u can't unlock it like its older model. As stated above, all games run flawlessly. I can play Shadow Gun then load up GTA3 and switch between the two without either game lagging.
You'll be happy with your purchase after the first minute of playing with the Iconia.
Sent from my Iconia A500 using XDA
WiFi works quite well under Gentoo for me. On Honeycomb, it was sightly buggy at times. The changes in ICS seem to have gotten rid of this issue, for me at least.
apapousek said:
WiFi works quite well under Gentoo for me. On Honeycomb, it was sightly buggy at times. The changes in ICS seem to have gotten rid of this issue, for me at least.
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Click to collapse
Agreed i havnt had any wifi issues at all since ics
what specifically do you want to do with a tablet? That should help narrow your search , do you need root? do you need custom roms or is the stock fine? are you into testing? If your squeamish about "tech" stuff ,root /rom wont be your thing ,the stock roms offer alot in these tabs ,just having ICS doesnt ensure you anything over HC , most people have this problem about worrying about updates , getting antsy over it , if you go custom rom it all depends on what your comfortable with , you might change the rom daily ,or you might be totally satisfied ,I have a Windows phone 7 that has a custom rom I installed back in december , havent changed a thing since , On my Acer I couldnt tell where I was a week ago ,everything gets changed between a few days to a week !
Read the dev section , anything by skrillax ,civato ,vache,blkthdr (thor if you can find it) and Moscow desire to name a few and you'll be on the right track and as civato says "dont be a chicken, just do it" otherwise stay stock and wait for Acer............
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions &
Read the Forum Rules Ref Posting
Thanks ✟
Moving to Q&A
Just so that people will know what up.
I bought one of the ics-x7hd units and i do love it. The mistake that i have is that i thought since i am getting this new unit and since i had a Samsung S2 phone why not go all the way and get the new S4 model. The phone is great! The unit is great! the problem is that they are not great together. (Yet) all of the bluetooth features like phone, Pandora, and music work fine. Drive link works great as well until you plug it into the head unit. It will start to work and show the dont play with it while driving screen but once you hit agree it will shutdown and display an error on the phone. I have called Alpine and they said that they would look into to it but who knows how long that will take. I would feel worse but they also do not currently make a plug that works with the new Iphone 5."I read that from an iphone user via Crutchfields site. I am happy with the unit and it produces great sound quality just be aware that if you want to use it with the Samsung S4 its gonna bit a while.
If anyone has any feedback or solutions i would love to read it.
Update on my post
Just an update on my original post.
I was able to side load a copy of Drive link 1.1.028 and it work with my Samsung S4. Now that it works i have a ton of things that i would change about the drive link app but it does do what it claims to do. Simple app that does a few features but not nearly designed to work at its full potential.
KenMich13 said:
Just so that people will know what up.
I bought one of the ics-x7hd units and i do love it. The mistake that i have is that i thought since i am getting this new unit and since i had a Samsung S2 phone why not go all the way and get the new S4 model. The phone is great! The unit is great! the problem is that they are not great together. (Yet) all of the bluetooth features like phone, Pandora, and music work fine. Drive link works great as well until you plug it into the head unit. It will start to work and show the dont play with it while driving screen but once you hit agree it will shutdown and display an error on the phone. I have called Alpine and they said that they would look into to it but who knows how long that will take. I would feel worse but they also do not currently make a plug that works with the new Iphone 5."I read that from an iphone user via Crutchfields site. I am happy with the unit and it produces great sound quality just be aware that if you want to use it with the Samsung S4 its gonna bit a while.
If anyone has any feedback or solutions i would love to read it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please provide a link to Drivelink 1.1.028
Note 3
KenMich13 said:
Just an update on my original post.
I was able to side load a copy of Drive link 1.1.028 and it work with my Samsung S4. Now that it works i have a ton of things that i would change about the drive link app but it does do what it claims to do. Simple app that does a few features but not nearly designed to work at its full potential.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey I just got a ics-x7hd and I can't get my Samsung note 3 to link to it at all.
Can anyone help?
Hi guys, sorry if it has been asked already
I'm wondering if I should by a Gear 2 or a live .
I think I might be interrested to place and respond to some calls on my watch but I'm not totally sure also.
On the other hand, I found the live interface a little bit too annoying. Don't really a big fan of swiping the cards and go through everyone one of them to find your stuff.
I probably don't have a good understaning of how these watches are working , that might be the problem.
Thanks in advance guys.
Sounds like you already answered your own question.
May like to answer calls at the watch, do not like cards but I am not going to tell you what to buy.
Being stuck with Samsung devices (non Samsung Devices are only partly functional), and Tizen I would never buy a Gear 2.
I like the always on display of the Gear Live, hate the Gear 2 battery life.
I like the idea Android Wear can not be customized (add Samsung bloat), and there are 3 soon to be 4 manufacturers
Honestly at this point if it would not kill me to wait for a few weeks I be tempted to see if the Moto-360 lives up to the hype.
AstroDigital said:
Sounds like you already answered your own question.
May like to answer calls at the watch, do not like cards but I am not going to tell you what to buy.
Being stuck with Samsung devices (non Samsung Devices are only partly functional), and Tizen I would never buy a Gear 2.
I like the always on display of the Gear Live, hate the Gear 2 battery life.
I like the idea Android Wear can not be customized (add Samsung bloat), and there are 3 soon to be 4 manufacturers
Honestly at this point if it would not kill me to wait for a few weeks I be tempted to see if the Moto-360 lives up to the hype.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep that's a good point ! And I think you helped me a lot with your honesty.
I was not thinking indeed Tizen vs Android.
The Moto 360 is very tempting but I think the price will be too high for me.
Another question if I may, has anyone tried to use the Gear Live with a phone that has a passcode on it ? (a real passcode with 8 characters, not a pin).
I'm asking that because I have one from work which has Maas 360 installed on it and it's something I can't remove.
Thanks again
Hello,
For device comparisons, please go to this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2229761. I will have to close this one.