11 comments

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  JOhn

  9 months ago

  Sounds just like the original mark 1 blackberry - email only, no voice.
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  Ewan

  9 months ago

  That's almost exactly what it is... Will folk buy it though?
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  Mike42

  9 months ago

  Here's the AP review that appeared last week, and it's pretty damning as far as I see.
  
  The overall experience looks to be fairly rubbish.
  
  In the developing world the 1-day battery life would be a killer. And if you're going to save up a month's wages to buy one thing, it better do more than email. And sending US$20 away will kill 90% of the global market - it's just too expensive on top of local MNO's data charges. It's US-only for now, and at that price I can't see it going anywhere else...
  
  And for the developed world, the expectation of battery life & speed wouldn't be met. Between work, cafe's & home web-based email is never far away, leaving the uber-email junkies. They just would not accept this level of low speed and restriction - no Exchange support, no HTML content, not push (major omission IMHO, from a firm that owns the E2E experience. Why not do a protocol a la Lemonade / Emoze / MoMail? a basic Pull connection is wildly inefficient on both network and battery).
  
  My money's on this one slowly glugging into the bargain bin, to the distinct whiff of burning VC money....yes, initial press looks good - but there have been many, many cases where things that looked good at frist were subsequently killed by dinner-table & water-cooler tales of woe from disgruntled users.
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  Mark Thomas

  9 months ago

  Hmm.. can't see this working out - I personally wouldn't get one and I am an uber gagdet freak.
  
  Make it a one off fee and no monthly then maybe.. and a few more firmware releases too by the sounds of it! :)
  
  Mark
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  Mac Morrison

  9 months ago

  its doomed.
  
  $20 would be £12?+ a month here
  for that money why would you.
  you can get a lg ks360 for £59 PAYG on orange
  or a winmob with qwerty for £99.
  or a sidekick etc.
  
  people would want convergent devices. but as a market the mumberry is largly untapped.
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• 

  Mike42

  9 months ago

  hmmm....everything points to people actually *not* wanting converged devices.
  
  In fact, wanting the opposite. Hence the huge market for the $100 Flip, alongside the 100%-saturation, huge market for Digicams that almost inevitably can do better video than the Flip for free. But the Flip is elegant, and crucially simple. And iPods, when mostly any phone newer than 2 years can play music as well.
  
  Converge devices and you double the battery demand, clutter the UI and halve your redundancy. Eggs in one basket -> basket gets dropped -> no more eggs.
  
  No, this will fail because it is a poor implementation. They don't care about corporates, and I agree, although there would be plenty of small businesses who might like mobile email and nothing else. If it was 3G, with open-source attachment support (Word / PDF, AVI, maybe MP3) and had a battery that lasted a week, I'd be sold. But maybe even that meagre feature list is too geek for the masses to care.
  
  But you are correct re price.
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  Mac Morrison

  9 months ago

  flip's a gimmick - it will be history by next year.
  i dont see it lasting as a product thats bought by anyone
  other than gadget freaks.
  
  mac
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• 

  Mike42

  9 months ago

  Er....do the mass market purchase gimmicks at $100 a pop? I doubt it.
  
  Actually, the Flip is purchased not by gadget freaks, but by anti-gadget freaks, people who don't want features. People who want one-click, no options, easy upload to YouTube or their PC.
  
  The difference between the Flip and the Peek is that the Peek is compromised by its omissions, the Flip is enhanced.
  
  Time will tell.
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  nacho

  9 months ago

  Not my personal opinion but I counted over 10 of my friends who'd rather have an email-only device. I have a friend in a finance company who needs to carry a b'berry for work email. However, she does not need to receive/make calls on it, just email, she doesn't even know the phone number on the device! Of course she will be happy with an emai-only gadget
  
  However, at that price and specs, the Peek won't do
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  TerenceEden

  9 months ago

  It's a neat idea. But given that you can get BlackBerrys free on a £20ish contract, I don't really see the point.
  If it could use WiFi rather than the phone network, it might not be such a bad product.
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  Mac Morrison

  9 months ago

  it wil be interesting to see how WiMax effects device development. VOIP replacing regular calling?
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