OMG, the Pink Phones Exist, Kinda

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

Good golly miss molly, look what Gizmodo got their hands on:  mock ups of the legendary "Project Pink" devices that are evidently branded Microsoft "Zune phones", made by Sharp.

The first Device above is "Turtle" (from 9to5Mac ) and "...the slide out keyboard houses the mic at the bottom and it is meant to be open when being used as a phone".

The second device, pictured below, is "Pure" and

They will continue to use the App Store model that the Sidekick has employed with over-the-air applications appearing on your phone bill. Danger's phone App Store predated Apple's by two years.

The weird thing is what will these be running: WM7, Zune OS, a combo of both?  And how does that fit in with WM7 in general i.e. application capability? As to carriers, that is anyone's guess though Verizon was rumored early on to be carrying either one or both.

Hey, you asked for a Zune-like phone, looks like you'll get one.  Now the question is, are these your taste? And is this a good idea? Sound off in comments!

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

13 Comments
  • "The question is, are these your taste?" I guess I'd have to say that it appears they are not, although it is a bit hard to tell much from the limited detail available in the pictures. These look like devices marketed to the adolecent to early twenties group. That is not necessaily a bad thing, it just means that I'm far past that age bracket these days. Just my two cents worth, but I wouldn't be surprised if the more youthful crowd likes them.
  • Indeed. It seems like they're going to be dumb smartphones, where the OS and software is not as customizable as WinMo straight. OTOH, they can guarantee a certain level of performance. I bet all these leaks are tied to October 6th in NYC--has to be.
  • I think it's the software that matters here. These will look much more attractive when revealed and shown running the software.
  • I think the Turtle formfactor will definitely appeal to tweens (mostly teens). If they remain simple in design and has zune... I'd consider the Pure. I like the idea of both touch and tactile inputs. (although, I really like Courier lol)
  • Keyboard on the Pure looks like crap. No directional arrows? It also looks just like the Cliq and every other phone. Boring.
  • Don't count on app compatability with this. I am certain this will not come with the .NET framework installed, and probably will not have the ability to install it. However, it can be guaranteed that widgets will work on it which is still good news. Would be great though if the famework was installed. I hope I'm wrong about that.
  • Fugly looking kids toys. But we'll have to see what's under the hood and how it works out the door.
  • I tend to agree with the other comments that these phones look like they are for the younger crowd. I would have much rather seen a phone like the Zune HD with a slide out keyboard.
  • Wow. Does Microsoft have absolutely NO creativity? How long is Microsoft gonna play the catch up game, where new developers come up with great ideas and then Microsoft steals/copies the gimmick a year later? You'd think one of the biggest corporations would have put together a good team by now, huh? Nope. Just great at stealing concepts from this company and ripping off ideas from that company.
  • There's actually very little innovation from anyone is the world. Most of it is riffing on other people's tunes and improving/adding to that. Fact is, Danger had a good thing with the Sidekick but it never went far enough. Merging it with the might of MS might pay off for them in the long run and allows MS to better compete with iPhone/WebOS devices. As far as the "looks" go, this are just computer models, not final products, so I wouldn't be so hasty to judge.
  • The turtle looks like a really fat and short Palm Pre...
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