Kin Twom Thoughts . . . since I have the phone AT LAST!

Question

I have had my new phone for about two weeks now.  I was previously posting as user CinnamonSwirl but for some reason when I changed my account and phone, my id's were all messed up and I had to re-register on the Community.
Anyway, it's been a long road to getting this phone but so far it's been worth it.
If this were the first phone I ever had, I would love it 100%. As it is, I miss a couple things about my other phone (the original Alias) but nothing that I can't live without.
First of all, I was able to have the Verizon store move all my contact information to my Kin. It did cost a $20 fee, however.
I am enjoying all the features of this phone, and the perks seem to outweigh the drawbacks. For instance, it is a bummer not to be able to erase an individual message, but I love the im-conversation-like threaded texting, so it makes up for that.
The wifi is definitely cool. If my daughter is on the computer at home, I can jump on my phone to check email and weather, stuff like that. Wifi in public places doesn't seem to work quite as smoothly as my wireless connection at home though. One thing I haven't been able to make work  is the streaming zune. I've successfully logged into Zune and subscribed to a month to see how I like it, and I've downloaded about 200 songs to my phone. I can't get the Zune pass to work on the phone when I'm not connected to the computer, though. Anyone know a solution to this? And I know it's not the wifi connection because I am able to open and use the web browser and sync my email.
Another problem I haven't been able to figure out is my pictures won't show up on the zune page. They just appear as grey squares. Did this happen to anyone else?
The camera is 100 times better than the camera on my Alias, which made every picture look yellowed and aged unless it was taken outside in full sun.  I'm still adjusting to how it operates and maybe this has been touched on before but can you text a picture to email, and if so how? The only way I can figure out how to do it is just to directly email it from the phone, and if I don't have a wifi connection of course this doesn't work.
My local Verizon store carried no accessories for my Kin, so I ordered a couple of attractive cases from the Cellular  Factory online, and also got an extra charger from them for about $6.
I do love the feel of the texting keyboard. The letters are spaced perfectly apart from each other and the space bar is in a great location and long enough that I don't accidently hit other keys. I do miss some of the graphics that were on my other phone - such as different smiley faces. I don't know if there's a way to download some of that stuff to this phone or if I just need to get over that.
I purchased 2 ringtones from Verizon online, because even though the Kin has a decent sized collection, they're almost all lame. I do like the "Ping" noise and I have that as a text notification, but for calls I needed a couple of real tunes. lol
Hm, that's all I can think of right now. I may add more later. Thanks to all who posted here and helped make up my mind about getting this phone and ditching my prepay service for a real contract (the cheapest available).  =) 

Answer 1

TwistedRiver, I am sorry your pictures are showing on the Zune page. I have listed the steps for how to start the sync process to download and transfer your pictures and music with your KIN device through the Zune site. 
From the Zune home page select settings.
Select phone.
Select one of the following.
All
Automatically syncs all items of a particular media type in your collection.
Items I choose
Syncs categories of individual media types by dragging them to the Device icon.
Manual sync
Manually add / remove media on the device / computer.
Additionally, listed below is a link for a thread within the Verizon wireless community that discusses the KIN and information about downloading your pictures and music.
http://community.vzw.com/t5/KIN/Kin-ONEm-downloading-photos-to-computer/td-p/336611
KinquanaH_VZW