View Full Version : New E-Mail gadget
Mrs Baggins
11-13-2008, 11:27
Seen this yet? Big article about it in USA Today this morning. Don't know the coverage area or much else about it, but if you just want an email device with a better keyboard than a cell phone this might be a good thing........at least it's very thin and easy to carry.
http://www.getpeek.com/
Help a non-cell phone owner.
$20 a month. Is a cell contract more or less than this, usually, normal, average...
Mrs Baggins
11-13-2008, 11:37
Probably a lot more, especially if you want email capability on the phone. I don't have it on my Verizon cell (contract) and I pay around $60/month. I don't aweb browse on it, either - just call and text.
This sounds like a great product. Will be interesting to find out how well it's covered along the trail.
Kerosene
11-13-2008, 11:39
Most cell contracts cost more than $20/mo, but for the infrequent user you might consider a Tracfone (http://www.tracfone.com/), which uses pre-paid minutes good for a year. My wife swears by it. Note that you might need to plunk down some money in order to get a modern, lightweight cell that you'd consider carrying for thousands of miles.
Help a non-cell phone owner.
$20 a month. Is a cell contract more or less than this, usually, normal, average...
Look into TracFone. I've used it for years and find it very affordable. About $130 for a phone and annual activation and about 400 minutes of time. Additional time can be added from any phone or computer with internet access. No long-term contracts. Very good coverage. Dependable. Not recommended if you are a heavy phone user, but for an occasional call it works great. No email tho.
If you are looking to do some journaling, this email device looks like a good option. Can still stay in touch with family via email and an occasional phone call when in town.
While I have no doubt loading up a Tracfone is easier now, I bought one of those years back. Was to be a glovebox E-item for a relative. Painful to load, no signal, and the battery did not like a Maine winter.
No wonder people have cell phones glued to their ears. I would want to get my money's worth, too.
Back to the cool e-mail device...
While I have no doubt loading up a Tracfone is easier now,
Back to the cool e-mail device...
Yeah, used to be a bit of a pain. MUCH easier now - no numbers to punch in.
Kerosene
11-13-2008, 12:07
Specs on this device:
Weight: 3.8 ounces
Dimensions: 4.0 x 2.7 x 0.4 inches (tiny!)
Display: 2.5 inches, 320 x 240 pixels, full-color
Memory: 8 MB
Battery Life: 4-5 days under typical usage
Radio: US Triband GPRS (is this 3G???)
Device Cost: $79.97
Looks pretty neat. I continue to believe that e-mail or texting is much more dependable to communicate from the deep woods than a voice cell phone. This looks like it could be a great replacement for the old Pocketmail device.
Mrs Baggins
11-13-2008, 15:12
Specs on this device:
Weight: 3.8 ounces
Dimensions: 4.0 x 2.7 x 0.4 inches (tiny!)
Display: 2.5 inches, 320 x 240 pixels, full-color
Memory: 8 MB
Battery Life: 4-5 days under typical usage
Radio: US Triband GPRS (is this 3G???)
Device Cost: $79.97
Looks pretty neat. I continue to believe that e-mail or texting is much more dependable to communicate from the deep woods than a voice cell phone. This looks like it could be a great replacement for the old Pocketmail device.
That's what I'm thinking. I wasn't suggesting it is a complete replacement for a cell phone. I'd still carry mine. But if I wanted Verizon to add email services to it I'd be paying at least $20 in addition to the monthly service fee I pay now and I hate typing on cell phone key pads. I'd use this little device just for emailing and drafting journal entries. I'd like to find out if you can pay the $20 just in the months you're actually using it and not when it's laying in my gear box in the basement. :-?
It does indeed look like a cellular version of pocketmail. A little less than half the weight, too.
Old Grouse
11-13-2008, 15:24
This sounds like a great product. Will be interesting to find out how well it's covered along the trail.
Yes, that will be the real key to its degree of usefulness.
Wonder if there is a way to upload your jpegs from a camera to include in the emails you send, or does it just display jpegs that are sent to you?
This would be a great feature to ad, maybe a card reader or at least a usb port.
Powder River
11-18-2008, 02:48
This looks great, and I wish it had been around a year ago when I was preparing for my thru-hike. One thing that might make or break it as an email device is the keyboard, and how much typing you actually will do on it. Are you going to write your journal on this device? If so, try out typing on one of those huge blackberry's, and imagine typing 2-3 pages every day on that keyboard. Maybe you would need a full keyboard, or maybe you could get by with this.
http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/peek-charcoal/4505-6454_7-33232671.html?tag=txt%3bpage
Here is the review from cnet, and they seem to like the keyboard, so maybe it would work. They said they found a t-mobile sim card in it, which means it is using the t-mobile network, and should have the same coverage as any tmobile phone along the trail. I don't know how good that coverage would be, but I can't imagine it would be as good as verizon or at&t, which still had huge holes in coverage.
The absolute dealbreaker for this type of a device and its usefulness on the trail would be its ability to operate without a cell signal. Many non-smartphones that have web capability allow you to access and use email through the internet, but if you do not have access to the network then you are out of luck for composing an email. What you need for the trail is an email program that works offline (because you will usually not have a signal when you are camped), and can send your composed email to an outbox, which can be sent later once the device is online. Without this, you might as well leave it at home. It does seem to me that the Peek is such a device, but it would be a good idea to double check this before buying.
I love the concept of this thing though, and it seems custom-made for long distance hikers. Looks like a great replacement to pocketmail! I love the comment in this review (http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/09/18/review-peek-e-mail-device/) that says "In my humble opinion, the biggest issue concerning the Peek e-mail device isn’t whether or not it does what it’s intended to do, but who is it intended to serve?" Someone should tell him- HIKERS!
Powder River
11-18-2008, 02:50
Wonder if there is a way to upload your jpegs from a camera to include in the emails you send, or does it just display jpegs that are sent to you?
This would be a great feature to ad, maybe a card reader or at least a usb port.
I don't think it would have this feature. I have yet to see a cell phone with this feature, so I doubt this would have it.
I carry my blackberry, has email, phone, & browser. I've used it more than once to look up the weather.
Hey Powder River, thanks for your technical input! Like all new gadgets, I'll use the "wait & see" approach, to see if it is congruent to my use as a hiker.
By the way, Powder River, you still rock!
spencerb
11-19-2008, 01:55
I've been looking at the peek for this purpose and posted these question on their message boards to get some insight. Once I hear back on what they say about composing for later when not on a network, battery life, etc. I'll let y'all know.
kayak karl
11-19-2008, 06:47
I don't think it would have this feature. I have yet to see a cell phone with this feature, so I doubt this would have it.
if you have a phone that takes a Mini-SD. you can use this card in your camera,
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/supermediastore_2026_67289275
after you take pics, put it in phone (adapter on right stays in camera) and upload or e-mail pics. I use a Moto-Q
if you have a phone that takes a Mini-SD. you can use this card in your camera,
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/supermediastore_2026_67289275
after you take pics, put it in phone (adapter on right stays in camera) and upload or e-mail pics. I use a Moto-Q
This is great, I didn't think it should be that difficult to add a card slot. Hope they included one.
spencerb
12-26-2008, 21:40
I got myself a peek for Christmas to use for my thruhike and I just wanted to let yall know my first impressions of it. First off, this is an e-mail-only device. It also does text messaging relatively well but it is inconvenient for a lengthy text-chat. It is made for doing e-mail, and it does it very well. It doesn't have a slot for an sd card or internet or anything like that. It does e-mail.
This little guy is really light. It weighs 3.8 ounces and is very slim-- 4 inches by about 2 and a half inches and a little less than half an inch.
As for composing things on it--I have a few days practice and it is getting easier but it is by no means a full size key board. It is QWERTY but typing like a blackberry with your thumbs. I have pretty large hands so sometimes I hit the wrong letter or two letters at once. The text is crisp and it has a lot of options to make the battery last longer.
While at home, on one battery charge without turning it on and off it lasted about 3 days.
I figure while I am out on the trail only turning it on to write journal entries and then turning it off the battery could last much longer.
Obviously I haven't gotten the chance to take it out on the AT and see how it works while backpacking, but it runs on the t-mobile network. I plan to e-mail off journal entries whenever I find signal and twitter whenever I find signal. I probably won't be carrying a cell phone and this will be my only communications device and what I use for journaling.
So far though, I love it. And if I change my mind, I'll let yall know.
I'm with Powder River on this one. I carried a smartphone on my PCT thru-hike this year, and decided ahead of time that the slide-out keyboard wasn't adequate for me; a folding blue-tooth mostly "full sized" keyboard was much, much nicer. The result was that I had a relatively complete journal entry literally every trail day. There's no way I would have done that on a micro-keyboard.
Brian Lewis / Gadget '08
http://postholer.com/brianle
Johnny Swank
12-27-2008, 23:19
This thing seems ideal for shorter texts and emails, but I don't think I'd like it for heavy journaling. I usually have a newspaper column going during long trips, and a folding keyboard is the only way to fly for putting down several hundred words at a time.
Still haven't found my ideal solution, but I'm getting closer. It'll probably end up being some sort of smartphone/bluetooth keyboard, with an SD slot.
Here's what I used on the Mississippi River trip
http://sourcetosea.net/writing-while-traveling-on-the-mississippi-river/