In a move that marks Microsoft’s foray into the consumer mobile arena, the company introduced its two new smartphones – Kin One and Kin Two – at high-profile presentations in San Francisco and New York City on April 12.

About the debut of Microsoft-branded phones, analyst Katherine Egbert, at Jefferies & Co, said that the Kin announcement, “coming one month after the Windows Phone 7 OS debut, indicates Microsoft is increasingly serious about the mobile market.”

Essentially aimed at the young generation, both the Microsoft handsets – both of which debut on Verizon in May - emphasize social networking, along with the capability of an almost-immediate sharing of videos, images and messages with a wide range of contacts.

While the smaller of the two new Microsoft smartphones, Kin One, has a form-factor similar to that of the Palm Pre; Kin Two has a close resemblance with T-Mobile Sidekick. Though both the devices feature a QWERTY keyboard, Kin One has a 5.0-megapixel camera with flash capable of shooting SD video; while Kin Two 8.0-megapixel camera capable of shooting HD video.

Both Kin One and Kin Two boast integration with the Zune media player; and feature the capability of uploading data, like texts, to the cloud via a password-locked Website called Kin Studio.

Commenting on the new Microsoft handsets, Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said that Kin “represents a well-thought-out, well-implemented product for an attractive audience segment.”