I think there’s a market for the Peek

Quite a few folk across the web are talking about The Peek. It’s an email-only device — think Blackberry but without any features (e.g. phone, browser).

It’s America-only at the moment and is being sold in Target supermarkets from today for $100 and a fixed service fee of $20 a month. Here’s what it looks like:

Picture 6

If you simply want mobile email… and JUST mobile email then the Peek looks like a good idea. The experience, according to Eric over at The Oregonian isn’t entirely brilliant. He had a few surmountable challenges getting it to work.

I do like the concept though. I like the idea of normobs being able to buy mobile email simply and easily.

(I’d like it even more if there wasn’t a monthly fee — I’m thinking something like the PocketSurfer2, for example.)

As Eric points out in his piece, the Peek is definitely not aimed at business people. ‘Soccer moms’ are the target suggestion — or teenagers. Although I reckon teenagers would much rather have a smartphone of sorts.

Although I haven’t had hands-on with the device, I can imagine getting one for my mother. What d’ya think?

Tags: ,

  • JOhn
    Sounds just like the original mark 1 blackberry - email only, no voice.
  • That's almost exactly what it is... Will folk buy it though?
  • Mike42
    Here's the AP review that appeared last week, and it's pretty damning as far as I see.

    The overall experience looks to be fairly rubbish.

    In the developing world the 1-day battery life would be a killer. And if you're going to save up a month's wages to buy one thing, it better do more than email. And sending US$20 away will kill 90% of the global market - it's just too expensive on top of local MNO's data charges. It's US-only for now, and at that price I can't see it going anywhere else...

    And for the developed world, the expectation of battery life & speed wouldn't be met. Between work, cafe's & home web-based email is never far away, leaving the uber-email junkies. They just would not accept this level of low speed and restriction - no Exchange support, no HTML content, not push (major omission IMHO, from a firm that owns the E2E experience. Why not do a protocol a la Lemonade / Emoze / MoMail? a basic Pull connection is wildly inefficient on both network and battery).

    My money's on this one slowly glugging into the bargain bin, to the distinct whiff of burning VC money....yes, initial press looks good - but there have been many, many cases where things that looked good at frist were subsequently killed by dinner-table & water-cooler tales of woe from disgruntled users.
  • Hmm.. can't see this working out - I personally wouldn't get one and I am an uber gagdet freak.

    Make it a one off fee and no monthly then maybe.. and a few more firmware releases too by the sounds of it! :)

    Mark
  • its doomed.

    $20 would be £12?+ a month here
    for that money why would you.
    you can get a lg ks360 for £59 PAYG on orange
    or a winmob with qwerty for £99.
    or a sidekick etc.

    people would want convergent devices. but as a market the mumberry is largly untapped.
  • Mike42
    hmmm....everything points to people actually *not* wanting converged devices.

    In fact, wanting the opposite. Hence the huge market for the $100 Flip, alongside the 100%-saturation, huge market for Digicams that almost inevitably can do better video than the Flip for free. But the Flip is elegant, and crucially simple. And iPods, when mostly any phone newer than 2 years can play music as well.

    Converge devices and you double the battery demand, clutter the UI and halve your redundancy. Eggs in one basket -> basket gets dropped -> no more eggs.

    No, this will fail because it is a poor implementation. They don't care about corporates, and I agree, although there would be plenty of small businesses who might like mobile email and nothing else. If it was 3G, with open-source attachment support (Word / PDF, AVI, maybe MP3) and had a battery that lasted a week, I'd be sold. But maybe even that meagre feature list is too geek for the masses to care.

    But you are correct re price.
  • flip's a gimmick - it will be history by next year.
    i dont see it lasting as a product thats bought by anyone
    other than gadget freaks.

    mac
  • Mike42
    Er....do the mass market purchase gimmicks at $100 a pop? I doubt it.

    Actually, the Flip is purchased not by gadget freaks, but by anti-gadget freaks, people who don't want features. People who want one-click, no options, easy upload to YouTube or their PC.

    The difference between the Flip and the Peek is that the Peek is compromised by its omissions, the Flip is enhanced.

    Time will tell.
  • nacho
    Not my personal opinion but I counted over 10 of my friends who'd rather have an email-only device. I have a friend in a finance company who needs to carry a b'berry for work email. However, she does not need to receive/make calls on it, just email, she doesn't even know the phone number on the device! Of course she will be happy with an emai-only gadget

    However, at that price and specs, the Peek won't do
  • It's a neat idea. But given that you can get BlackBerrys free on a £20ish contract, I don't really see the point.
    If it could use WiFi rather than the phone network, it might not be such a bad product.
  • it wil be interesting to see how WiMax effects device development. VOIP replacing regular calling?
blog comments powered by Disqus

Powered by Interactive Energy | Sign up to The Application Review newsletter