So, since I’m not posting much in the way of international affairs of late, I thought I’d fill some of the accumulating empty blogspace with my thoughts on a new gadget I’ve owned for the past week or two now, the Peek.
The Peek is a sort of budget-Blackberry, a portable device running on the T-Mobile network which gives barebone e-mail access for $20 a month, with no contracts. The Peek itself costs between $50-80, depending on which version you buy. The difference between the versions seems to be only in color, “Push" mail, limitied .doc and PDF support, and number of email accounts you can hook up to it (3 or 5, depending on whether you get the $50 or the $80 “Peek Pronto,” which is the version I am reviewing.)
The Good
So far, the Peek does exactly what it says on the box. It’s portable, it’s affordable, and it gets me my email (and of course lets me send same.) I hooked it up to an IMAP account on some personal webspace, my Yahoo mail account, and my Gmail account, and it seems to deliver and send from all three with no problems, within 5-10 minutes (maximum) of the time the email would have been received or sent from the source. This is probably too long for Push-mail purists, but it’s fine for my needs.
My main worry when ordering the Peek was whether it would be compatible with my Yahoo! Plus email, which technically works over a POP connection rather than webmail. While the Peek didn’t ask me any specific configuration questions about whether my Yahoo mail was standard or “Plus,” it does seem to recognize my anti-spam settings and does not download email flagged as spam. Whether this is because the Peek is adapting to my POP settings or simply ignoring them and checking my Yahoo Plus! account over the webmail interface I don’t know, but at least it works the way I want it to.
Aside from the simple fact that it’s cheap and does what it says it does, I have to say I like the form-factor of the device. It’s slim enough to fit in any pocket (and look like a more expensive gadget in public). It’s also just heavy enough to not feel “cheap.” The keys (in full QWERTY arrangement) are of a tough rubbery material and not prone to accidental clicking. The screen is bright and the interface straightforward.
The Bad
All things considered, there isn’t much “bad” about the Peek when you remember that it’s designed for one thing, and one thing only- email. There are a few things I’d mark for possible future improvement, however.
First, the .doc and PDF support is pretty barebones. It’s basically a document-to-plaintext conversion and won’t show any graphics, formatting, or non-OCR’d PDF text. It doesn’t handle Microsoft’s new Word format, .docx, either. The device would have a lot more potential business appeal if it could do a little more with attachments in this regard (although, business users don’t seem to be Peek’s target demographic.)
Second, battery time is a little lower than advertised. With minimal emailing, my battery runs low after about 24 hours. Maybe that’s just a fluke, and it’s still perfectly usable, but it’s not the 3 days I remember reading somewhere else. Charging the battery is somewhat annoying also, because the rubber cover for the charger mini-USB port is almost impossible to remove without removing the Peek’s battery cover or using a screwdriver or knife. Again, maybe I just happened to get an extra-solid model off the line, but it’s something I’d change in future versions.
Finally, it seems that with a few adjustments, you could add at least a few minimal extra features to the Peek – a calendar, calculator, and so on. (Or maybe even a text-based browser, like Lynx? Although this would admittedly draw the Peek away from its email-only mission.)
Summary
For my needs, the Peek is perfect, albeit in a stop-gap, temporary sense. I work independently so I don’t get a corporate Blackberry but still want some kind of portable, inexpensive option to check my email on the go, and the Peek fits the bill without making a large dent in my pocket.
Or perhaps that’s a poor choice of words – the dent in my pocket is larger than the dent in my wallet. I’m currently carrying three separate electronic devices around now: my old ipod Nano (2nd gen), my Verizon cellphone, and the Peek.
The Verizon cellphone is a basic model and doesn’t do email very well (or cheaply). At the same time I don’t want to switch to a T-Mobile phone service provider because T-Mobile coverage is patchy at best, at least in New York (especially inside buildings). My three devices – the phone, ipod, and Peek – should all be consolidated into an iPhone if Apple makes good on the rumours that it will be releasing a Verizon-compatible version in 2010.
Until then, the Peek completes my portable electronic “triad” very nicely indeed.
