Aircel has launched Peek, a single purpose email device in India. The device comes with a full QWERTY keypad and a 2.5″ screen, is attractively priced at Rs 2999, and allows users to access unlimited emails on the move. It supports up to three POP3 or IMAP accounts from service providers like Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail, as well as corporate emails. More importantly, like the BlackBerry, it has Push mail which delivers all new mails to the inbox. The company claims that it only takes 60 seconds to set up the email accounts in the device.
For Rs 2999 all a user gets in India is the device: Aircel’s plans appear to be rather expensive: on prepaid there is an unlimited email service for Rs 897 for 90 days after which subscribers can opt for Rs 89 for 7 days or Rs 299 for 30 days validity. For Postpaid, Peek users will be charged Rs 897 for three months unlimited email service and Rs 299 per month after that. That’s rather high for a device that you can’t use to make calls. So you’ll keep two connections and devices – one for email, word documents, excel sheets, pdf and images files, and one just for making calls? I’m not so sure…
It appears that the Peek isn’t made to compete with the Blackberry: it will attract users who primarily use the Internet for sending and receiving emails but cannot afford a Blackberry; setting up GPRS in India is often a pain, leave alone setting up your corporate email.
A few features are missing in India, from the US version of Peek: In the US, along with unlimited email, Peek also allows unlimited text messaging. It also has an app store with applications like Peek Social with which users can update status and view friends’ status updates as well. Other apps include maps, apps for Twitter and weather updates. WiFi capability and an Internet browser would also have helped.
One thing that really works in Peek’s favor is its battery life. Unlike the ’power sucking’ smartphones (well, or for that matter, most Nokia phones) that GPRS bleeds dry, Peek claims to have a battery life of 2-3 days.
Related:
–Updated: Aircel To Launch Mobile App Store With Infosys In 4-8 Months
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7 Comments until now.
An iPod for email? Interesting… whether it takes off with the users here or not, its an experiment worth trying. Kudos to Aircel.
I think – the data plan is priced a little higher. If I can afford a BlackBerry for Rs. 299 I get unlimited emails, social networking and chat.
So for the device that is just doing email and is priced lower, the data plan should be lower too.
Also, essentially one would need to carry a phone. The cost of phone for user that needs mobile email access would be approximately INR 7000. So the total cost would be approximately INR 10K. For that much money, I think there are many more solutions available, and BlackBerry is not too far away as well for INR 14K.
Hello,
I am the CEO of Peek and would like to thank you for opening up this question on Medianama.
The basic premise of Peek is that while there are several QWERTY and GPRS enabled devices around, they are remarkably difficult and complex to setup and use. There frankly isn’t a device in the world at this price point that provides Push mail on a QWERTY device. That is the key. The setup literally takes less than a minute. No POP, SMTP, IMAP settings are required. Just your name, email ID and password and you’re set. One cannot accomplish that on most devices in the market, unless they are powered by BBY. And as pointed out above, the ASPs of BBY is upwards of Rs. 14K. As for the service price, there are no Push Mail service plans less than 299 a month in the market today.
(continued on next comment)
So who is Peek for? There are millions of folks that have to go to a cyber cafe just to check email – these are students, job seekers, sales reps, housewives and people who are travelling.
Our research has shown that even people who have laptops only open them a few times a day – for example, if you are in a bus or a local train, it is impossible to fire up your laptop, plug in a data card and download email. But all of this is possible on Peek!
In many organizations, only the GM and above are eligible for BBYs – Peek is targeting the segment below that. There are millions of mid-level managers in India who use email extensively, but are not eligible for BBY – this is yet another segment that we aim to capture.
Thanks again for the opportunity to post on your blog! I will be happy to answer any more questions.
Siddharth Mangharam
CEO – Peek India
Would the device have capability to support VoIP – for e.g. a skype application that allows to make calls?