I was going to get a first gen iPhone, hack it and use it with T-Mobile’s $5.99 data plan. I just can’t get used to the touch keyboard on the iPhone. At $100 and with no contract I might give Peek a try.

I didn’t know about Pockmail, but this thing is way better than that for the same monthly fee

I want to say thank you for going against what everyone else thinks is “conventional”. You’re absolutely right, the geeks won’t think too much of this device, but I can think of a dozen people that would love to have your Peek(r). I mean seriously, what did people think when Apple thought up the iPod device years ago? There were already many music players on the market…but what they did is incredibly simplify the experience…and made it available to the “rest” of the folks…and the rest is history.
Just last night I was talking to a friend who does full time evangelizing work during the day…and has about 400 emails waiting for him every couple of days when he checks his email account. And I thought it would be great to get him an “email only” device that was cheap and had full qwerty. And today I find this device.

I hope this works out for you guys…I just wish the email plan was more like $10.

- Sam De La Garza

I like the idea.

I don’t want an iPhone – I don’t like hold up a brick to my ear and I don’t need all the extra stuff that comes with it.

I like my phone separate from my email device and I would be willing to purchase this device and pay a monthly fee.

True enough. They do appear behind that time-frame, but I suspect we’ll hear more from them soon. I’ve had some communications with the company and have additional info, but I’m not able to share it just yet.

The WSJ article you reference saying the product will launch early next year is from June 2007. We’re well past “early next year.”

If it was gmail, definetly if it supported gtalk

I think I saw a device with a similar goal (and at a similar price point) at CES three or four years ago. Can’t quite remember what it was called (but it obviously wasn’t successful). Gotta dig out my old photos to jog my memory

As for this one, no chance.

Mobile email is so 1998

I don’t see much of a market for something like this. Parents are not likely to use any mobile device for email and kids don’t use email at all, they text message. Everybody else uses a cellphone or other mobile device like the Nokia n880 which does email quite well.

no

I see those folks texting like crazy. They don’t want email, but if they do they can already do it. Might not be best but for the rare time they want to email it will do.

Hmm… I see the target market carrying a feature phone (at best) where the e-mail experience is so bad that the function isn’t currently used. Folks like my parents and my kids come to mind.

pocketmail is $20/ month for the 3 month service plan.

I used pocketmail for a while. You held the device up to a phone and it transferred text. Sounds very similar.

http://www.pocketmail.com/

I believe that the target market already carries a cellphone, and almost every one of those can do email. No extra charges.