I don’t know if it’s entirely pointless. I don’t want my kids to have a cellphone yet, and not just because of cost, though cost is a factor. Texts don’t leave a good record for parental monitoring. Tweets might. Plus $0/month is kind of attractive…

I was very excited about the TwitterPeek when news of it surfaced. I was initially put off by the cost of the device, but my lust for the TwitterPeek got the better of me, and I also rethought my position somewhat. The unit itself costs $52.29 if you subtract the six months of service from the $99.99 price tag. Or for $199 you get potentially years’ worth of always-on connection to Twitter. Go the latter route and it becomes very cost-effective over time if you’re a big Twitter user.

Given my excitement about the release of the TwitterPeek, I was very interested in following its reception in the Twittersphere. So I was really shocked to read that early impressions of the product were extremely negative. I shouldn’t say impressions of the product, I guess, because most of the people who were Twittering and blogging about the device early on had never seen or used one. There were two main objections to the device raised: (1) it only does Twitter, and multi-function devices are superior; single-use devices should be avoided; and (2) smartphones already do Twitter, so there’s no need for a dedicated Twitter device. These objections, worth raising, were, however, often accompanied by a surprising amount of vitriol. For some reason, a lot of people don’t want such a device to exist: they see no use for it themselves, and don’t want other people to see a use for it either.

Regarding the two objections above, the point is, it really depends on your needs. If you have a smartphone that’s already giving you always-on Twitter, then there’s absolutely no need for you to buy a TwitterPeek. But not everyone wants to cough up the monthly fees required for smartphones. I myself hate using the phone, landline or cell. I have a basic Tracfone that cost me $20 to buy and costs me $20 every THREE MONTHS to keep going. I hardly ever use it, but it’s good to have for emergencies. I have an iPod Touch that gives me virtually all the benefits of an iPhone, but without a camera (which I don’t need) and without the cell phone (which I don’t need or want). But I’m tethered to wi-fi with it. So what am I missing? The ability to Twitter when I’m away from a wi-fi signal. That’s what TwitterPeek provides.

Some people may object as well that one doesn’t NEED to Twitter at all times, and of course that’s true. But it’s a good way to stay in touch with friends and family, and it’s a legitimate a mode of communication. If you don’t like Twitter or use it enough to want to use it on the go, then again, the TwitterPeek isn’t for you.

There have also been, let’s say, more rational reviews of the TwitterPeek that have criticized its features, which is fine. I just object to the crazed bashing that has occurred over the very existence of the device.

After a lot of obsessive TwitterPeek watching I finally bought myself one, and I’ve been using it pretty intensively for the last 24 hours. It’s a mix of good and bad; some things could be improved. But on the whole, I like it, and I’m not sorry to have spent the money. In more detail:

SET-UP
The set-up of the device is simple–you pretty much just input your existing Twitter credentials. But it wasn’t immediately obvious from the documentation that you have to activate your device online first. Once you do that, it only takes a couple minutes to be up and running.

NAVIGATION: SCROLL WHEEL AND KEYBOARD
The TwitterPeek comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, which is really nice. The keys are stiff but not too stiff, with the exception of the space bar, which is a little too stiff for my comfort. On my second day of ownership I gave myself a typing test to see how many characters I could type in one minute on the TwitterPeek vs. the iPod Touch (which I’ve owned for close to a year). The results:

* iPod Touch: 206 characters with 5 mistakes
* TwitterPeek: 173 characters with 0 mistakes

As other reviewers have noticed, navigating the TwitterPeek’s menus and viewing tweets using the scroll wheel is much too awkward. Happily, most actions can be performed with keyboard shortcuts. These work very nicely. My favorite detail is that you can hold down a letter or number key and it will become either a capital or the associated symbol. (One shortcut I discovered but didn’t see in the documentation: shift-S for settings menu.)

Still, there are some things that you have to use the scroll bar for, which is unfortunate. Ideally, I would like to have every action performable from the keyboard. That means, I’d like to somehow see directional keys on the keyboard. The Kindle’s four-way toggle comes to mind as a possiblity. (To move left or right within a tweet you’re writing you have to press shift and use the scroll wheel.) When you’re in a menu, or a tweet for that matter, you have to back out using the back button on the side of the device. To me it seems unnatural to use buttons on the side when you’re otherwise focused on the keyboard–it’s disruptive, like reaching for a mouse when you’re typing. So I’d like to have a back button on the keyboard. I’d also like to have a quicker way to get to the home screen than backing out two or three times if you’re inside the menus (shift-H?).

The keyboard, by the way, is lockable in case you’re worried about accidental keystrokes. Though I think the keys are stiff enough that that’s not a likely problem.

ABILITY TO FAVORITE A TWEET NEEDED
You can follow links that are included in tweets received, but you’ll only get a text copy of the web page. In some cases this is fine, but it’s obviously not always going to be enough. This doesn’t bother me, because I’m happy to wait until I get to my computer to view interesting links. However, to this end I’d like to be able to favorite a tweet as a sort of bookmark so I can go back to it easily (for example, shift-F would work nicely). This isn’t possible currently. Instead, I’ve been reduced to direct messaging myself the tweet as a reminder, which is an annoying work-around.

NOTIFICATIONS
You can be notified of new tweets either by a sound (there’s are five choices, but I prefer the chirp) or by vibration or both. You can be notified either of all tweets or only @messages and dm’s, or you can turn notifications off. In addition, when new tweets come in the little envelope in the upper left of the device blinks. I rather like hearing my TwitterPeek chirp throughout the day, I must say. I would suggest two improvements to notifications:

1. Make it possible to receive different alerts for @messages and dm’s vs. other new tweets. For example, one might want to hear chirps for stuff that’s directed at you, but a different sound or only vibration for regular tweets.
2. There is an airplane mode on the device, which I gather shuts down the wireless connectivity temporarily. (I’m not sure why that’s preferable to turning it off.) But I would like to have a temporary mute button. Sure, you can go into the menus to turn the alerts off when you want to, but it would be easier to be able to, say, shift-M them away for the length of a movie.

ABILITY TO MARK TWEETS AS READ NEEDED
People have complained that the TwitterPeek makes reading your tweets difficult because it only lists the first lines of the tweets on your home screen. You see part of the Twitter id of the person sending the message then a snippet of the tweet and then the time it was sent. In real use I haven’t found this problematic. Most often I go into a tweet and then jump to the next one or the previous one using the N and P keyboard shortcuts. Also, if the full tweets were displayed then you would only be able to see two or three at a time, which would increase the amount of scrolling you have to do, which would be bad.

I do dislike very much, however, the fact that the TwitterPeek does not mark as read tweets that you have entered to read. I hate to guess where I’ve left off reading in the Twitter stream. (Though it does keep your last place highlighted as new tweets come in.)

SPEED
Sitting with my TwitterPeek in front of my Mac with Tweetie open on the desktop, the reception of tweets by the two devices is roughly the same. Sometimes a tweet will come in first on Tweetie, sometimes on TwitterPeek. There’s been no noticeable difference. (Where the TwitterPeek does lag slightly is when performing functions like discarding an unfinished tweet. But it’s not a huge lag.)

APPEARANCE
The device itself is pretty attractive, I think. It has a solid feel. The keyboard is nicely laid out. I particularly appreciate that so much information is relayed in a tiny, attractive strip at the top of the color screen:

You have the Twitter logo, then a signal strength indicator, battery indicator, time and date, and the Twitter bird (which flies when it’s communicating with the network), and finally the name of the screen you’re on (home, settings, etc.). A lot of information in an attractively designed space.

As for the font of the tweets, it’s not as attractive as what one sees on the iPod Touch/iPhone–I’m thinking here of Tweetie 2 (a great app). Somehow the TwitterPeek font looks like it’s not smooth…

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