Truth is, having a smartphone that can grab your email gets expensive if you’re on a data plan (unless you’re using only WiFi). Not only do you have to pay a premium price for the phone, but the data can add $30+ per month to your bill. The Peek Pronto may be a good solution for this problem.

I was at an electronics store the other day when I saw a relatively new device called the Peek Pronto. It’s an inexpensive email grabber (it is $80 for the hardware on Amazon and then $20 per month for service) that you carry in addition to your regular cell phone (which presumably is NOT a smartphone). The Peek uses T-Mobile’s GPRS network, and will interface with Microsoft Exchange and do push email, plus other email services like GMail.

The design is similar to that of a BlackBerry curve or Motorola Q9h – it’s got a full QWERTY and no touchscreen. It’s running on a proprietary operating system. It’s a bit lackluster in terms of specs, but the battery life is allegedly quite good. It has a QVGA (320×240) screen with a 104MHz CPU and 8MB of memory. Obviously it is not going to do well with HD movies or video streaming because it’s made for messaging which requires little hardware might.

Economically, the Peek can save you money if you want to do mobile email but don’t want to pay the high price for a smartphone or wireless data. For some, carrying around two devices may be a bit much, especially in the age of converged devices. For more, check out the Peek website.

We’ll be doing a review of this device in the coming weeks, but until then – what are your thoughts on the Peek? Is this a good concept, or just another device to carry?