The Historian

Most of you know me as the gaming junkie who lives the dream as the Community Manager for Acclaim Games. Yes, that’s right, I get paid to play video games. Ok… only part of the time… The rest of the time I’m interacting with the nearly 10 million registered users of our games. That is where my Peek comes in. With a public email address (community@acclaim.com), I get lots of feedback (I really do read them all) from the players and of course there are times when I’m contacted by my company to communicate things to the players. Peek keeps me connected 24/7 with my mail so I can respond to just about anything within minutes. This week I was able to install a Pronto test build on to my lovely Black Cherry Peek.

They called it "Pronto" because of the 50% speed increases in the OS and I have to say that it is well worth it’s moniker. The improvements to the menu navigation were significant. You can visually see the difference in the response times. The addition of two more email accounts slots, bringing the total to five, will help greatly. I have three email accounts for work alone. This let me have all of them and room for a couple of my personal accounts. The ability to search for emails on the device and a larger font size option were welcome additions. They have also added support for push email and compatibility with Microsoft Exchange, which will be a godsend to a lot of business users. Tack on the ability to view images, PDF and DOC files and you have a really powerful little device. 

Existing Peek users (versions 1.04, 1.05, 1.06 and 1.08), will get a free software upgrade to Peek Pronto. The hardware of the retail Pronto has an improved keyboard with a softer push on the keys, but everything else inside is the same. I’ve heard of a few great deals to be had on the devices if you shop around. Keep in mind that the Cherry and Aqua versions are no longer in production, so grab them while you can. The "no contract required" fee is a mere $19.99 a month.

So if you are looking for a great basic email device you can’t go wrong with a Peek.