Project Pink Phones Emerge Again

Microsoft has been long rumored to be working on its own mobile phones, which emerged several times into the wild before as the Project Pink handsets, and now a few more details on the matter are available. It seems that the phones in question, which were said to come under the codename of Pure and Turtle, are getting closer to a launch on the market, and, as previously rumored, Verizon will be the carrier to have them.

The guys over at Gizmodo managed to grab a series of leaked marketing materials with the two handsets, and they say that the oval vertical slider, which is known as Turtle, as well as the side-slider Pure, will both run under an operating system that hasn't been seen before. Windows Phone 7 won't be present on these devices, it seems, although the platform on them might actually feel and look as the new OS Microsoft announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Among the details that the leaked documents unveiled we can count the fact that Turtle is expected to be a social networking focused device, and that it should also offer access to an application store, though it seems that no info on the store’s platform and distribution model are available. At the same time, the documents also point towards the possibility that Verizon won't be the exclusive launch partner for this device.

As for Pure, the phone should come with a Zune-like appearance, though still including the Sidekick form factor. The handset is expected to deliver links to email, music, RSS feeds, and more directly from the home screen, and should also offer access to the aforementioned application store. Pure is also set to make an appearance on Verizon's airwaves, it seems, and both handsets are reportedly slated for launch sometime in Spring 2010, which means that it shouldn't be too long before we hear more about them.