Not Quite a Sprint iPhone, but Close

For people still shaking a fist at AT&T for its sole distribution of the iPhone, your workaround is here. It’s called the ZTE Peel, sold by Sprint, and it adds a 3G-to-Wi-Fi connection to an iPod Touch, giving it the capability to act as a phone.

The ZTE Peel claps on the body of an iPod Touch and adds a 3G connection.

I first wrote about the Peel back in November. Now that I’ve had a chance to use it, I can tell you that it has the feel of a workaround, which means the phone function feels a little tacked on and requires some leaping of hurdles to use. But it does work.

The Peel claps on the body of the Touch like a battery case does, just about doubling the weight of the device. There are cutouts for most controls, but connecting headphones through the deep recess in the case will require the included extension cable.

The case doesn’t plug into the Touch in any way. It is a Wi-Fi hotspot in the same way as a Mi-Fi card, just in a different form. That means you will have to dig into the iPod’s settings to connect it to the Wi-Fi hotspot created by the Peel.

You can connect your iPod to the 3G network without physically attaching the Peel to the phone. That’s good, because it is styled to attach to the second and third generation Touch, but not the slimmer later-generation models. It will also connect up to two devices at a time.

To use the Touch as a phone you have to add some third party Voice over Internet Protocol software, like Skype, Fring or Line2. And you’ll need to have a headset with a mic plugged in. You’ll also need a decent 3G connection to have a clear conversation. I’ve found the VoiP services to be a bit iffy when conditions aren’t optimum, and the sound quality I got was a bit fuzzy even under good conditions.

The Peel itself costs $80. You’ll also need a Sprint data package of 1GB for $30 a month. Estimates of how much talk time that buys varies. Skype estimated that one minute of VoIP over 3G would use about 0.345 megabyte of data so 1 gigabyte of data should be about 2,900 minutes of VoIP voice calls. Other estimates run from 4,000 minutes to 20,000 minutes.

Whatever it is, you won’t use them all up on one charge. The Peel can only stay powered up for about three hours of continuous use.