Peek, the company, first made its claim to fame with the Peek, the e-mail-only handheld. The simplicity of the device was meant to appeal to consumers who didn't want the complexity and monthly costs of owning a smartphone but still wanted to send and receive e-mail. We certainly understand the idea, and we also liked the design of the Peek, but we could not get behind the monthly cost of such a simple gadget. Peek later came out with the Peek Pronto, which added more features like five e-mail accounts, support for Microsoft Exchange, and most importantly, the ability to send and receive text messages. This sat much better with us, especially when they lowered the monthly cost to around $17 a month.
Now it seems that Peek has returned to its single-purpose philosophy with what might be the only gadget of its kind, the Twitter Peek. That's right, the Twitter Peek only does Twitter, and nothing else. Twitter is, as many might know, a microblogging site that is currently the darling of the social Web. Right now you can use Twitter on the site itself, via text message, plus a variety of desktop and mobile applications. You can use Twitter with any Internet-enabled computer, or just about any mobile handset with a messaging or data plan.
So we'll admit it: we think the idea of a single-purpose device for Twitter is a little silly. But we were open to the idea that maybe there's someone somewhere who honestly just wants a Twitter-only handheld. Maybe he or she doesn't like the idea of a monthly data and messaging plan, but still wants constant mobile access to Twitter.
Unfortunately, the Twitter Peek is not the right solution for that, either. We found it terribly inefficient and inadequate, with an interface that is ill equipped to handle the volume and complexity of Twitter. To add insult to injury, the Twitter Peek is $99 with six months of free service and $7.95 a month thereafter. If you don't want monthly service charges, you can pay a whopping $199 for it up front. Sure, you might pay more for a cell phone or a smartphone over time, but that's because they do so much more than just one thing.
Details
The Twitter Peek's design is exactly like that of the Peek and the Peek Pronto, so don't be surprised if you get a bit of déjà vu here. Measuring 4.02 inches long by 2.7 inches wide by 0.42 inch thick, the Twitter Peek is wide and slim, with a soft-touch front and a silver metal backing. Its trim blocky aesthetic makes it look more like a fancy calculator than a BlackBerry.
The Good: The Twitter Peek is slim, lightweight, and has a handy jog dial on the side for scrolling. You can do almost everything on this that you can do on the Twitter Web site. We also like the feel of the QWERTY keyboard.
The bad: The Twitter Peek does not display full 140-character messages on the home screen, links in tweets lead to badly rendered text-only Web pages, you can only view images from TwitPic and no other Twitter photo service, you can't have multiple Twitter accounts on it, it can take a long time to load new tweets, and it doesn't load all the missed tweets between when it's powered off and back on. It is also far too expensive for what it does.
The bottom line: The Twitter Peek does not deliver a positive Twitter experience, which is especially disappointing because that is its only purpose.
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