Peek Pronto with lifetime service: $299
By Laura June 
posted September 28th 2009 5:01PM
posted September 28th 2009 5:01PM
posted September 28th 2009 5:01PM
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awesome.
Agreed. Makes you want to just get one of those free dumphones with a cheap voice contract and just carry two devices around. Or maybe three if you want to rock music. Awesome indeed.
That said, this is a phenomenal deal and I would gladly carry a Nano, this, and a sh*t phone around to save that kind of scratch. 8)
Meh. You can get unlimited email on a Blackberry for $10 a month now.
And by "lifetime" they mean *their* lifetime, not yours, and by all indications that might not be a very long time.
where do you get unlimited email for $10 a month?
Or you could just try to finagle a sweet contract that would have voice and data for super cheap...then revel in the glory of modern smartphones.
Stan, what exactly has indicated that this company will not last very long?
that is pretty damn tempting
Ok... lets get one thing straight
Lifetime = until the company tanks
or
Lifetime of that device = charge cycles of internal battery
(well of course we all know that we can open the little sucker up and replace the battery with a little soldering skills, and help from DealExtreme)
@ Big_ass_troll
1. It uses T-Mobiles satellites. So I'm sure unless t-mobile goes bankrupt, Peek will probably stay alive.
2. It has a removable battery. And you can get them for pretty cheap. This isn't a rape-you-in-the-ass company. They're actually pretty cool and keep in touch with their users. Hell, their CEO comments Engadget from time to time. You don't see El Jobso or Ballmer doing that. =P
@Eddie.exe I was with you until you said t-mobile satellites. Then I just stopped reading.
Eddie, satellites? Really?
Why do people think cell phones run off satellites? Sat phones connect to satellites, but 99.9% of cell phones are terrestrial-based. (For those who think they run off satellites, terrestrial means they connect to towers located on the Earth.)
Or you could buy a netbook...
I really do love this thing, though. It's a small company that's fought to survive. If it wasn't for engadget's strange obsession for them, they probably wouldn't have made it.
Netbook? What netbook comes with the data package like this?
The one that does not allow a noob like you to change APN's and use a $7/month Prepaid unlimited data plan...
but then again a noob like you probably does not know the meaning of tether...
Now please go and troll somewhere else, this thread is not big enough for the both of us.
@Big_ass_troll
Hahaha you said you have to pay $7/month. The whole point of this service is LIFETIME! Maybe you should read the blog first and then my post and then if i were you I still wouldn't post on here.
very interesting. its runs on the T-Mobile network
Very interesting ... so it might have a SIM card in it with the data service tied to it. Someone buy this and find out if you can just transfer the sim card into, say, a netbook.
Might be like hiptops/sidekicks where they run a separate APN and such?
My local Target had a Peek on clearance this week.
$10.75
So it wasn't just mine. I had never really heard of it before but I couldn't pass up buying some random cell phone/gadget for 10 bucks.
I have a problem.
I think they were clearance for $5.98 at Target yesterday...
Just picked mine up for 7.49 on clearance.
Just use the coupon-code "BIRTHDAY" during checkout and you'll get yourself a free Peek Pronto, guys! Just visit www.getpeek.com.
Comment back when you've claimed your free Peek Pronto. I'm not joking.
Just got a couple from Target. The black one was $3.73 and the blueish / greenish one was $4.98 in the clearance section. Target is clearly getting rid of the older model, but I couldn't find where they were selling the newer Pronto model. I will probably return these unopened. Because I have no use for email, and there don't seem to be any useful hacks. If it had wifi, you can bet someone would have hacked it to do some unofficial things.
i would be more worried about the length of the "lifetime" of the company ending before the lifetime of the device...
I have to agree with you on this one.
Is this for someone who *doesn't* have a cellphone capable of e-mail, Twitter or Facebook?
Lifetime data is cool... but considering you already pay for a phone and service... it seems kind of odd.
Does this look like a last gasp for breath to anyone else?
Did it look like a last gasp when they did it last January? You would have been wrong then too.
I'm still really confused as to what the point of this device is? Our cellphones do email already. Why would I carry around another device in my pocket to do email?
its cheaper long term. a fair estimate for unlimited data for most carriers is about $20 if you cut that data plan it would only take 15 months for it to start paying for itself. (thats $300 / $20 = 15) and you would get the device for free. I wont get one of these though, my email is not that important.
first of all, this is a gadget site, so you should already be aware of the joy of having another gadget.
second, your data plan is so much more expensive than this.
>> "its cheaper long term. a fair estimate for unlimited data for most carriers is about $20 if you cut that data plan it would only take 15 months for it to start paying for itself."
>> "second, your data plan is so much more expensive than this."
I just can't envision a situation where I would want to cut off all of the functionality of a data capable smartphone... no web browsing, no streaming radio, etc... so it basically becomes a texting featurephone... and then pay $300 to carry an additional device, that just does email.
I'm happy to pay for a data plan for my phone... because it does so much.
This is popular with people who really don't know better. The mom who just got the promotion and loves her RAZR but needs email on the go. The person who thinks the 30something add on + price of Blackberry is ridiculous.
It's a niche.
If only this would work internationally, I'd be on it like a fly on honey!
You never see any flies near beehives though.
Hmmmm. The business strategy behind this? They are desperate to get more cash and/or they have got a new peek coming later next year and want to get a load of people who will pay for an upgraded Peek device. My thoughts are that they will launch a version with international roaming and charge another $150. "The deal will cover any future device upgrade you might make". Very telling.
Ask TiVo "life time subscription" purchasers how well that promise worked out for them.
I've wondered about that. What's the scoop?
TiVo Series 1s still get data, but no more software updates. There's a difference between "support forever" and "it still works".
Gadget lifetimes tend to be quite short, and a device like a Peek probably has a shorter lifetime than your average TiVo.
I have lifetime basic Tivo on my Toshiba Tivo that I bought in 2004 for $200, and it's still working fine. Turned out to be a tremendous bargain.
I have lifetime Peek that I bought in Jan. when they offered it for $300. Verizon was charging $30 more per month for data at that time for my Centro, which I declined. I try to push myself away from the time-wasting I do on e-mail and the internet. But some important things do occasionally come in via e-mail, and it's a way to send e-mails and texts while on the go. So the Peek serves me great as a minimally-connected, getaway-from-the-internet device. I take it on vacation and trips, and love it for my purposes.
P.S. the font is very small, so I don't really get how it's for Moms and Grandparents.
I had/have lifetime on my DirecTivo a model Sony T60. I paid $200 (maybe it was $240) but either way it was the old Lifetime Tivo rates and it totaly paid off. I ran my DirecTivo for about 6 years (had it a bit longer but was not active for a little less than a year). $240/72 months =$3.33 a month, a monster deal compared to current rates.
Also as far as user interfaces the Tivo has a great UI (some nitpicks in the scheduling) but otherwise something the current competitors are still not caught up with.
I am tech savvy and over that time the unit had 2 replacement hard drives (big surprise), but these were relatively cheap as I had spares anyways. For me this would equate with battery replacements on the Peek.
My only concern on the Peek is if I could get a solid 24-36 months of use of the device before it wore out (buttons, screen wear/cracks, etc).
Because a netbook for $300 gives you email just about anywhere you go? I don't know about you, but almost everywhere I go, there are no open wifi access points, and even if there were, I wouldn't be jumping on someone's open network that's probably loaded with virus laden pc's. No thank you.
Now you could get a netbook, which does not fit in a pocket, and tether to a phone (expensive and a p.i.t.a most of the time), and maybe get a decent email experience if you have somewhere you can set your netbook down, or sit so you can use it in your lap. But how much of a tard will you look like trying to respond to an email with your netbook while you're walking into a movie. Yeah, a netbook = a portable email device that fits in your pocket. TOTAL apples to apples comparison there, good job.
Since I am not a heavy user of my Rogers pay-as-you-go phone, and more into sending emails with my laptop... This would be lovely if available in Canada.
I would pass on this. But I am interested in that sim card question.
As long as you have an active Peek monthly plan(between $15-@19.95/month), you'll be able to get free SMS on any of your T-Mobile devices. I'm not sure if it works on other devices or not. You can try. You void the warranty on your Peek, but I don't think that's a big deal...
imagine the billions of dollars this would save corporate America. Take away their employees Blackberries and assign them a peek instead.
Only if this product works. In my test, it did not. Don't waste money and time on this. This aren't any push mail when you consider 10 min. receiving test message a push.
Personal anecdote really isn't a great judgment of a device or anything really. Statistically, the chances of someone having a bad experience with the device that they're willing to share are just as good as someone having a good one to share. If you wanna judge the device based on the speed of communication, you need some real, hard, repeatable data. And really given that it seems to run on T-Mobile's network your experience with the device relies entirely on your connection to T-Mobile's services.
"This aren't any push mail when you consider 10 min. receiving test message a push."
what??