So, you have Verizon, you want a smartphone, but you don't want the price of the data that comes with it.  Enter:  The Kin two by microsoft.  The Kin line of phones was discontinued about a year ago due to several reasons.  First of all, it was basically just a prototype.  Microsoft used this phone as a beta test for their operating system, which eventually became the windows 7 phone os.  Also, this phone served another important purpose.  It was the first phone to have an online sync. system.  Basically, they developed a system to connect your phone to the internet "cloud service."  From here, your pictures, videos, music, etc. could be viewed on your computer as well.  The reason the phone failed was because it was marketed as a smartphone, which i'll come back to later.


The Kin Two is a decent phone, and it definitely has its strong points.  This phone is without a doubt the most advanced phone that Verizon offers without a data plan.  This phone sports features found on more expensive phones, such as a 3.5mm headphone jack, 8gb memory for music, an excellent music player (with radio), a capacitive touch screen, and a slide out qwerty keyboard, and it has an 8mp camera with led flash.  So, as far as features go, this phone is pretty much the best of the feature phones.

But, as always, you can't have your cake and eat it two.  This phone definitely has its drawbacks.  First of all, the volume button does not deactivate when the screen is locked.  Yep, that means you might be surprised in a movie, when your phone rings at full volume.  Also, the phone can be quite laggy sometimes, and doesn't always ring, which is a MAJOR problem.   

So, basically to wrap things up,  the Kin is a pretty good phone, but the problems above really make it hard to recommend this device.  But, since this phone has wifi, it is pretty useful in some situations.  

Pros: 
Wifi
Smartphone features in a feature phone
great camera
good keyboard

Cons: 
Crappy, but usable web browser
doesn't always ring
volume buttons don't turn off when screen locks