Kin One drops to $29, Two drops to $49, data plans remain silly expensive

Best Buy's already taken to offering Microsoft's Kin One for free and the Two for $49 on sale, but it looks like Verizon's officially lowering the price tag on its socialphones: the Kin One will henceforth be $29 while the Two drops to $49 for good. The ever-reliable Ina Fried at CNET says the move is a direct response to lagging sales; workers at one Verizon store told her that Kin devices are being outsold by the Palm Pre. (Ouch -- for both the Kin and the Pre.) Unfortunately, both devices will still require a $29/month or higher data plan, making their total cost of ownership about the same as Verizon's other, far more capable smartphones in the Droid line. Until Verizon wises up and drops the Kin's data pricing to "insanely cheap" we can't see sales ever taking off, especially since Windows Phone 7 is destined to utterly overshadow the Kin when it launches later this year. We'll see -- maybe that summer software update will blow our inner tweens away.