First Look at Microsoft’s ‘Pink’ Phones

Not sure what’s going on at Gadget site Gizmodo, but they have one hell of a source at Microsoft. First on Tuesday they broke news of Microsoft’s tablet prototype, Courier.

Now the site has posted exclusive pics of Microsoft’s new phones, called Project Pink.

The prototypes are the first pictures of the “Pink” phones. There are two models, the Turtle, a vertical slider design resembling the Palm Pre (shown above), and the Pure, a horizontal slider design resembling the T-Mobile Sidekick.

The Gizmodo article confirms that the phones will be Microsoft-branded but will be manufactured by Sharp, which is not that surprising given that Sharp made the Sidekick hardware for Danger, a company acquired by Microsoft in 2008. The phones have a youthful look and will be aimed at the same market as the Sidekick, says Gizmodo.

Earlier this week veteran ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley wrote that, according to her sources, the Pink phones will include Zune services and have their own app stores, and also will be built on top of Windows Mobile 7, which is still being developed and not expected to release until the last quarter of 2010.

So it’s likely you won’t be able to buy a “Windows” phone for another year, but the buzz should begin a lot sooner. This January’s CES would be the logical place to begin the hype.

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