Best Buy is Giving the Kin One Away Free and Selling the Kin Two for $50

Best Buy seems to be be the place to go for smartphones as of late.  Does the phone have a ridiculous mail-in rebate like the upcoming EVO 4G?  Best Buy will just take it off the price.  Does the phone cost about $50 too much for the intended market?  Best Buy will solve that problem as well.

The Kin phones from Microsoft launched last month, with the Kin One costing $50 and the Kin Two costing $100 after rebate.  The phones are somewhere between a feature phone and smartphone, aimed directly at pre-teens to those in their early twenties.  The only problem was that the phones were just a bit too expensive for that market.  Best Buy has answered by lowering the phones by $50 each, bringing the Kin One to free on a two-year contract, and the Kin Two to $50 with a two-year contract. {Engadget}

That still doesn’t solve the problem of the $30 data contract required for the phones, however.  With actual phone service, the total comes in around $70/month. That, unfortunately for Best Buy, is left up to Verizon Wireless and Microsoft.  Given the phones’ market, it’s more likely that the users parents would be buying the phones and paying the contracts every month.  It’s not very likely that there are a lot of parents who are willing to spend an extra $30 per month on a phone that can only really use Twitter, Facebook and the mobile web, but coupled with enough pressure from teens the free price tag of the Kin One could be convincing.  Still, with the price of the monthly data plan, we’re betting that the tech savvy teens will save their leverage to get a Palm Pre Plus or Droid Incredible instead.






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