Peek email-only handheld already discounted $20

The Peek email-only handheld got a peculiar amount of praise given how, shall we say, non-multifaceted is it, but even being atop Time's "Gadget Of The Year" poll couldn't save it from an imminent price cut. Yes friends -- nary two months after this here device began shipping, its creator is already knocking a Jackson off of the purchase price. Sure, the site says "limited time only," but as with Celio's REDFLY, we have all ideas the sticker will be sinking lower before it shoots back up. Monthly service is still situated at $19.95 per month, but you can snag yours now in Black Cherry, Charcoal Gray or Aqua Blue for the low, low price of $79.95.

[Via Gadling]

[iEye @ Nov 4th 2008 7:40AM]

Anyone hack this thing yet?

the sim card is removable with a little case prying!

now if we can get a browser loaded onto that thing...

[morcheeba @ Nov 4th 2008 12:12PM]

Peek's outreach to hackers: http://www.geekypeek.com/
Here are some pictures of the insides: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8728129@N05/sets/72157607274454694/
I checked the USB port... it's connected electrically, but peek's software doesn't enable it yet. It might be possible to use the omap bootrom's usb driver code, but I haven't been able to enable the usb-boot mode yet.

[amol @ Nov 5th 2008 8:36PM]

Dear Engadget,

You forgot to mention we threw in free unlimited texting. We're craaaaaazy!

That craziness also explains why we did the promotional price (plus a free $10 Target gift card) this week at Target.... watching Oprah give away Kindles on repeat will do that to you.

[Evan @ Nov 4th 2008 7:44AM]

I'm sorry but this just looks like a total and complete waste of technology. I don't know anyone who wants to carry one of these around with a cell phone, especially when you can more than likely add data to your cell plan for $20 bucks.
This is at least 7 or 8 years too late to sell.

[iEye @ Nov 4th 2008 7:46AM]

You completely missed the selling point of this devece...

[Evan @ Nov 4th 2008 7:49AM]

Right you are, I don't get it at all.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 4th 2008 7:58AM]

iEye, I think technology has sufficiently evolved to not force us to carry an mp3 player, an email client, a phone (and phone only) and a camera etc to everywhere we go. After all, the iPhone which you so love has good examples of three of those things, and some other smartphones have even better examples ;)

[iEye @ Nov 4th 2008 8:04AM]

Try to get Grandma and Grandpa to log into an e-mail account on those crappy phone UI's (excluding the iPhone), oh the horror of typing the number "2" just to input the letter "a"

This is why we need simple dedicated devices, touch screen computers with simplified UI... you know...
touch the MAIL icon for e-mail
touch the cloud icon for the weather
and so on...

[ChrisM @ Nov 4th 2008 8:16AM]

iEye, Wow, I want to meet your Grandparents! Not only could my 82 year old Grandpa probably not see this thing unless it was like 6 inches from his face, but I doubt he has the patience to figure it out, or try to press those tiny buttons with his arthritis-laden fingers. (Have you actually seen one of these in person, the buttons are pretty small).

The next generation of Grandparents would be my parents, the 60-somethings. Both of them already have both standard e-mail access and mobile e-mail access, and frankly have no problem looking up the weather on http://www.wunderground.com.

The only real possibly decent market I could see for this is #1, emerging margets, or maybe #2, my 7 year old with her own g-mail account. I did however think that this would have been a neat corporate device. You get a new job in a big corporation, you get one of these. Works on WiFi in the building, and normal over the air otherwise. Allows faster communication where necessary. Too-bad.

[Troels C @ Nov 4th 2008 8:20AM]

@iEye

Easy? Tell me then hoe to use my pop account, that I have on my own domain, or yahoo.dk...

[TubeTop100.com @ Nov 4th 2008 9:08AM]

iEye, my phone has a full QWERTY keyboard, just like your iPhone.... oh wait.

[Ryback @ Nov 4th 2008 9:29AM]

@ieye
How about teaching your grand parents how to use new tech? My granny took a course last year. I gave her an old notebook. This christmas she will be getting an internet connection and and a scanner. She will scan her old photos and upload them to picasa for the whole family to see. She is 82.

[konshuss @ Nov 4th 2008 12:13PM]

hey leave those poor old people alone... they've been through enough to have to put up with porn spam or penile enhancement offers.

iEye: weeeeak rationale. bush league.

[Luke D @ Nov 4th 2008 11:40AM]

Troels C, allow me to fix up the punctuation in one of your replies:

Easy? Tell me then, hoe; to use my pop account that I have on my own domain...

A world of difference. :-)

[Troels C @ Nov 4th 2008 7:44AM]

Everything can read emails these days, so why make a dedicated device anyway? Maybe its better at it, but the convenience factor in just using your phone just makes this unnecessary.

[Evan @ Nov 4th 2008 7:47AM]

Jinx... now buy me a cola or something.

[Troels C @ Nov 4th 2008 8:47AM]

Bugger, you beat me to it!
Send me your address and lets see if a coke can survive air mail from Denmark ;-)

[tim @ Nov 4th 2008 8:05AM]

Wow, I could get this in Black Cherry!
I could also stick a pencil in my eye...

[htd @ Nov 4th 2008 8:13AM]

the price for the unit isnot bad, but the monthly fee is

[KarlW @ Nov 4th 2008 8:14AM]

I really like this device. It's a focused product. Instead of trying to do everything, and ending up doing nothing exceptionally well, they're sticking to one function and making sure it's the best they can do. Good on them.

That said, I don't think there's a market. Being a good product is one piece of the puzzle, the other is finding a niche or un-exploited market. You have to time your arrival. The handheld email market has been exploited for all it's got. There's nothing to add. RIM's already made the fortune (email is pretty much the oxygen of the blackberry).

[Eric(other) @ Nov 4th 2008 11:38AM]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Well Said.
The only comment you need to read.

[jake @ Nov 4th 2008 8:17AM]

Price is not bad, but the email-only should be $10/month for its target market. Or it should provide Internet browsing for $20/month. And as near as I can tell, this thing is non-functional outside of the U.S., which is also unfortunate. My dad, a retired person who sees Blackberry devices as too complicated and mobile phones as too small, just wants something to get email, send "I'm okay" messages to his wife when he travels, and check baseball scores & financial information. All the other stuff on a Blackberry prevents him from getting one, and there is no way he can manage T9 typing or even see comfortably enough to type on the typical cellphone screen. If this had two more functions (browser and roaming) for a flat monthly fee, it would be a good option. Obviously, this item isn't targeted at anyone reading Engadget, but right now, the minimalism is too minimal for even those who are its target market.

[Jesse David Hollington @ Nov 4th 2008 8:33AM]

The odd thing about this device is that it's really just a "been-there-done-that" type of thing, and as somebody else said, several years too late.

Some may remember that in the earliest days of the Blackberry, this is pretty much *exactly* what the Blackberry was... A dedicated pager/e-mail device with no other capabilities. Of course, we didn't have evolved cellular data networks in those days, so the BB ran on a proprietary "Mobitex" network, but it was definitely an early attempt at providing handheld e-mail for corporate users.

As the technology evolved, so did the Blackberry. Surely if there had still been *that* much demand for e-mail only devices, RIM themselves would have kept making them. However, it became pretty clear that the demand was for integration.... carrying fewer devices that do more things by themselves.

The world has moved well beyond dedicated e-mail devices. I'm not suggesting that there's not a niche for *better* e-mail capabilities on existing smartphones (most are pretty bad at e-mail), but I really don't think that there's much of a market for *dedicated* devices that do nothing but e-mail unless the price was dramatically lower than your average basic-cellphone-with-data-plan -- pricing that I suspect would not be sustainable.

For the older generation that doesn't want handheld e-mail, I'd imagine that a full-featured Kindle e-mail client would probably be a much better fit than a dedicated device, but even then the pricing would have to be so low that there would be no point in somebody just getting a free cell phone with a basic plan.

[John from Buffalo @ Nov 4th 2008 8:35AM]

The idea of email ... well @ $19.9x is still a little stiff for me. I use a GSM phone and pay $39.95 a month for my 1500 minutes, then another $20.00 for data. What's the incentive for me to switch?! I get SOOO much more out of my Crackberry w/o the corp. plan, than this could ever give me. Noble move, but like Jake (earlier) the $10 entry point would make it a sick alternative and save me about the cost of the device per year, easily in my phone cost.

[chefgon_ign @ Nov 4th 2008 9:17AM]

If you don't understand the purpose of this device, go read the company's PR spin on it. I read through some of it and I finally understand why this thing exists. The reason why it seems so lame to us is because if you are a person who has voluntarily read Engadget even once in your life, you are WAY outside the target market of this device.

[sithlord 24 @ Nov 4th 2008 9:33AM]

this is the best post yet when it comes to this device!!! none of us here wants this!! but they are not marketing it to us

[Frank @ Nov 4th 2008 10:13AM]

This would have been great back in 2003.

[Dave Zatz @ Nov 4th 2008 10:35AM]

The original hardware pricing was fine. What they need to discount is the service fee.

[Sam @ Nov 4th 2008 11:38AM]

What's the betting that this thing hits rock bottom? I mean, in a down turned market is there really room for a device, however cheap, that fulfills a premium need only. I mean lets be honest, email is one of those nice things to have on the go but truly isn't a requirement for most people. Besides if it is a requirement your company is likely to have already supplied you with a Black Berry

[Shinigami @ Nov 4th 2008 12:23PM]

How come gadget of the year is getting a 20% discount way before Xmas???

Nice move, but IMO it won't help. This thing is just... useless.

[TroyB @ Nov 4th 2008 2:44PM]

Looks like the perfect device to market to the QVC shopper!

[tekd @ Nov 5th 2008 3:42AM]

While a great UI is definitely welcome, it's a terrible business idea to try and launch technology that's almost a decade behind the times. Maybe this would have kicked a lot of butt back when the only smartphone out there was a Palm pilot where you could only enter text via graffiti. Unfortunately it's no longer 1999, and far as I can tell this offers virtually nothing that a better software interface wouldn't offer on a ton of existing smartphones, without the need for an extra piece of hardware and an expensive additional data plan.
They might have to just give up and sell the UI or something, it could even run with their proprietary servers or something but it'd have to be a lot cheaper than $20 lol.

[Troels C @ Nov 5th 2008 5:50PM]

@Luke: Rofl!

[Lucky @ Nov 15th 2008 10:12PM]

I don't think many of you really understand the possibility of this device.

I hate using a cellphone. I rarely find a good use for having one. Although I am at the running screaming opposite end of being a Luddite, I've grown tired of having people be mad because I didn't answer their phone call or text immediately. I've got a home phone that gives me unlimited nationwide, and if not, I'd have skype. I don't want to be tied to a cell phone any longer, and this is the perfect device.

I can communicate with any via text messaging if I need to, and if its an emergency, well, people existed for thousands of years without a cell phone, I think I'll be okay.

I understand that I can get cricket for $34.99/month, but I don't want the cell phone availability. Everyone I communicate with texts anyway, so I can still keep in touch.

I've already got an mp3 player, and there's no camera that can take a picture worth a damn that comes with a cellphone/smartphone/blackberry. Get off it. It's not a necessity to have everything in one device. Sure, it's convenient, but is there a cell phone that has a quality audio chip that can properly drive good headphones? No. Can you find a cell phone that can let you do HDR images, or take something that at least comes a little close to film? No. So, for those people out there that do seek out devices that do things the best, this might be a perfect solution.

I use a dSLR, actually, a rangefinder, with Leica and Zeiss Lenses.
I use a Zune, modified, with the Wolfsun chipset, and a headphone amp to listen to music. The headphones range from Shure IEMs to B&O headphones, to high end Sennheiser phones.
And if I'm dying so so much for full web browsing on the go, I have a small laptop.
All of this, including a 70-300mm Zuiko Lense fits in a bag about the size of a large woman's purse.

Sometimes "well enough" just isn't good enough.

[TRAP @ Jan 12th 2009 5:20PM]

I love this device...but in all fairness (and to reach a broader market) it needs a browser or im application.