Peek is an email-only handset for people who don’t want smartphones or the top-tier data plans required to check email on them. Even massively discounted at $44, however, the Peek’s $20 monthly plan held it back. However, a Costco trial of the device at $400–but with no monthly payments ever–has proved a success.
If that seems weird, consider that the $400 pays for itself in less than two years, and you get free portable email and messaging until the handset dies. Forward-thinking consumers are prepared to invest in their own decisions, and this is a good example.
Previously:
• Review: Peek puts email in your pocket and removes voices from your head
• Peek email theory
Peek finds that Costco customers greatly prefer lifetime subscriptions [Engadget]
If they are anything like me purchasers may be more likely to come up with 400 extra dollars once than twenty every month.
So, does the data service keep working after the company folds?
FUD.
What 0XDEADBEEF said. I’m wary of any company promising to provide an ongoing service for a one-time payment. Sounds great, but I can’t help suspecting that their commitment will flag when I am no longer a significant source of revenue.
I wouldn’t expect them to offer service after they fold. But even then, it isn’t a bad offer considering they will most likely stay in business for more than two years.
I’d jump on this if they had it in Canada for $400.
Sure there is a risk with the company, but I guess I look over at the Tivo with its lifetime subscription and it has paid for itself over and over and over and over…
Anyone who signed up for Sirius satellite radio lifetime subscription (also $400) could have told you that.
Then again, Sirius-XM is flirting with bankruptcy (restructuring — which may include canceling lifetime accounts).
TiVo lifetime subscriptions have worked out well for the subscribers. So well that TiVo stopped selling new ones.
If the payoff time is 2 years, and the company is currently doing okay, it’s not hard to imagine it working out in your favor.
Makes a much better gift with the lifetime subscription.
But what’s the average lifespan for the device itself? What’s the warranty like? If you drop into the ocean and have to buy another one, can you get another one for $44 and continue on your lifetime service plan?
And a critical threshold of difference to whom I’ve always seen as this device’s target audience: kids.
If you’re a kid and your parents won’t provide you with or allow you to have a smartphone, what do you do? (Or you have parents who are draconian about “minutes allowance” or who confiscate your phone if they deem you “behaving badly”.) You don’t have a bank account or credit rating to get a phone yourself, and then you’ll still have monthly bills that will tip off your parents. Besides, in school you can’t gab using voice anyway; you’ll be texting everything (on the down low).
Any monthly agreement won’t work for anyone under the age of legally recognized adulthood. But $400 cash at Costco is something I’m sure kids can get together with birthday/holiday money, allowance, or savings of some sort (even pocketing lunch money for a couple months).
They are $100 for replacement handsets.
Peek is going to be around for a long time. I thought that the device was for kids. Then I bought one and have been using it for a couple of weeks. The lifetime service is for the lifetime of the device. If you are paying $400, and the device costs $50, then you are really paying for about 24 months up front. In two years, I expect that the hardware will change. The device really is more fun and easier to use for email purposes than the Blackberry I had and my friend’s iPhone. Also, the plan on the Peek is cheaper than either of those two devices.
I do not work for Peek but wish I did.
Cargojack
Visit http://www.getpeek.com
I’ve never understood why TiVo needs a subscription. To what? …the EPG? TitanTV provides that for free.
Interesting. The unlimited texting is a big draw for me, as I’m a bit of a Twitter geek. There seems to be a bit of a hacking community built around the Peek as well, and all manner of *-to-email services being tooled for it.
@#13: I almost thought the grass was green until you shamelessly plugged a URL to the website. Now it’s clear that the field has been turfed.
@ #16 Big Deal, so I included the URL of a product I use daily and like. As I said, I do not work for Peek, although i wish I did. And, I have no shame plugging a product I like or being a fan of a product I like. Really, dude, what is your objection? Try the Peek for a few weeks, and then make comments.