Is a Peek what I want?

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Permalink Reply by Allen on December 9, 2008 at 4:48pm

Know your area with T-Mobile's network. I live in East Tennessee and not had any issues. I bought it because I don't have to have an expensive contract and be tied into it. Most of my communication is email/text, cell phone is low usage.

It was a great choice for me.

Good luck in your decision making.

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Permalink Reply by CRAMSEY on December 9, 2008 at 5:36pm

@Allen Your experience must be different then mind when it comes to texting. The peek is a great little device for text base emails. However, As a quick communication text device I would currently consider it a little lacking. I am currently running firmware 1.4.

@David Expect to have a delay with email being delivered peek. As long as you have good service I would except about a 10 minute delay. In areas with spotty service. Make sure you turn the peek off and back on or you may not receive emails. I believe the last point has been resolved with the newer firmware. I would not consider a peek on SMS messaging replacement unless the delay is ok.

That being said I walk around with a T-Mobile Prepaid phone, and i-pod classic and a peek and I am all set. I am thinking the only thing I need to do in the future is change the i-pod classic to an ipod touch then I would have my internet access I am craving via free wifi. That being said. It would be a iPhone at 20% the cost per month and I could talk on the phone, surf the net and check emails all of the same time. I wonder how easy that would be on the iPhone by itself.


Allen said:

Know your area with T-Mobile's network. I live in East Tennessee and not had any issues. I bought it because I don't have to have an expensive contract and be tied into it. Most of my communication is email/text, cell phone is low usage.

It was a great choice for me.

Good luck in your decision making.

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Permalink Reply by Ian L on December 9, 2008 at 9:51pm

@david How many minutes are you using on your cell per month, on average? Asking because some usage patterns are better for prepaid than others; in some cases, it's best to stick with a contract. I'm saying this because I'm qualified to; I'm qualified to say this because of here, plus some copywriting I do for some prepaid airtime selling sites :-)

As far as texting goes, at the moment it is kludgy, if only due to the non-push e-mail on the Peek. Additionally, since Peek currently uses e-mail to SMS gateways for those communications, sometimes messages get lost in the shuffle, depending on your carrier etc. It will get better (hint to Peek: AOL has a good system, Google will have one shortly) but at this point texting is little more than a gimmick, seeing as how you're limited to what you could do on a typical email client.

When Peek gets IM, I'd think the texting problem will go away, and the device will be that much more awesome. You can look at my profile to see what I'm comparing to...

If you have any prepaid service questions, post a comment on my page and I'll do some research for ya.

@CRamsey I have an iPhone and it comes with a stereo headset...which I washed long ago. With that headset you can talk and surf/e-mail...if you have the 3G iPhone and you're in a 3G service area or have WiFi nearby. Meh.

I'd give the iPod Touch a +1 on "BUY BUY BUY"...it's a solid device if you've got the funds...all the good stuff about the iPhone, minus the phone, camera, Bluetooth (unless you want to hack it) and mic/handset speaker. Actually reviewed it here.

@Allen I was going to say that T-Mobile is all roaming in NC, but they just bought SunCom so now you should be good to go with their service. I'd personally go with Tracfone though if you find yourself in backwoods-type places; thos things will roam just like a contract phone (though they mostly ride on Verizon and AT&T, never Sprint).

@David to sum up, at this juncture you'll want to use some other device for text messaging, but down the road the Peek will do that very gracefully I'm sure. For e-mail, as long as you're not a CrackBerry addict who must have his email now Now NOW, you should be fine, especially with the upcoming firmware updates.

Oh, yeah, I fall into the impatient type, as my Sprint phone (have an amazing plan so not giving it up) does push my GMail to me, has high speed data (but same problem with simultaneous talking and browsing as the iPhone, even when on 3G) etc. But I spent $300 on my phone and you can't get my plan if you wanted it.

Hope this helps!

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