Millions more Americans will now be able to engage in SMS inane babble and update the world on their lunch habits with the official launch of the TwitterPeek, a handheld device that does nothing but let you Twitter.

Unfortunately, UK Twitterers standing by to defend the honour of Stephen Fry and/or the baboon genus will have to remain either tethered to their PCs or endure the danger of having to speak to real people occasionally by using a half decent mobile.

For $99, buyers get the device and six months of "unlimited Twitter service" before paying $7.95 a month thereafter.

Alternatively, they can cough up $199 and get unlimited Twittering for the lifetime of the device. Though presumably they are not actually predicting the lifetime of the device will be approximately 18 months.

They promise the colour screened, QWERTY-based device will deliver "a user experience far superior to SMS text messaging Twitter with a traditional cell phone."

Which may be true in one way. After all, who would want their microblogging to be disturbed by phone calls from their former non-Twittering friends, or by reading a long email, or even taking a picture of an interesting bird that has just landed in the garden.

Peek is selling the device via Amazon. So presumably those people who eschew "an expensive smartphone or dataplane" will have a PC and broadband. There's no word on who the service provider actually is.

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