Are there still any old Kindles with unrestricted 3G?

Andy_D · 04-07-2017, 06:29 PM

Are there any legacy Kindles that still have websurfing enabled to all websites via the experimental browser over 3G? I know some older models did, but I can't get a definitive answer as to whether the 3G on those old models has been restricted to Amazon and Wikipedia. I vaguely remember reading that Amazon cut back or cut-off this feature even on the models that originally had the capability.

I have been looking at ads for Kindle Keyboards. This one with its serial number beginning B003 that is "Kindle 2 International (AT&T) K2, K2" on the MobileRead Serial Numbers page is being sold cheap. $36. Can it access random websites?

Thanks for any replies.

barryem · 04-07-2017, 09:09 PM

I can't give you a real answer to your question. I used to have a Kindle 3 with 3G and it was able to access websites with 3G but some update since then may have changed that. The thing is that it accessed only very simple websites and did so very slowly and haltingly. Maybe in an emergency I might have been glad it was there but it wasn't something I'd have used by choice.

It also wouldn't access any site with any kind of sophistication at all. It couldn't check my email, at least not by using Yahoo's website. There may have been some other way to access it but it was so slow and jerky and troublesome I wasn't motivated to look for it.

It wouldn't let me get into Dropbox to download books. I think it was the same for Gutenberg. I don't actually remember trying it with Gutenberg but I probably did and if it worked I would have remembered that.

It was decent on Wikipedia, which was always my main use for it, but my 3G Voyage and Paperwhite do that anyway. It's built in so I can tap a selection and look it up on Wikipedia easily. I'm not sure I ever found any serious use for the web browser.

Barry

Gazerwolf · 04-07-2017, 09:40 PM

My Graphite DX still does web (slow, simple sites)

Andy_D · 04-07-2017, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barryem

Maybe in an emergency I might have been glad it was there but it wasn't something I'd have used by choice.
I'm not sure I ever found any serious use for the web browser.

Barry

I'm not sure, but I think you were relating your general experience with the experimental browser, whether on WiFi or 3G. What you wrote seems to be what everyone says about the browser, but I am an enthusiastic user of it.

I've actually used the experimental browser, over WiFi only, extensively. Some of the problems you described can be avoided by keeping javascript and images disabled. That speeds things up a lot and makes many sites accessible that won't work when js is enabled. There are some sites that require js, so you can temporarily enable it to attempt to see if their pages will open with the exp. browser, but some (surprisingly few in my experience) will never open at all.

Virtually all news, magazines, blogs, and forums will work. I made a basic website that consists of nothing but links to around 50 of the sites I check out regularly, and that is my "homepage." From there I just tap the site I want to visit, so I almost never have to tortuously enter anything manually. Once I have an article opened, I switch to "article view." Then, regardless of how the text was formatted or what the page looked like normally, the content I want to read appears exactly like the pages in an e-book on the Kindle. That is huge for me, since I don't like to read on an LCD phone or tablet, and I never see an ad or any extraneous garbage that even respectable sites place on the left and right and even right in the middle of the content one is trying to read.

So that's why I'm trying to find out if I could websurf via 3G with an old Kindle when I was unable to connect to a WiFi hotspot or my home router.

Since hardly anyone uses the browser, and Amazon still calls it experimental after seven years or so and has never improved it, I worry Amazon will leave it off in future firmware.

Andy_D · 04-07-2017, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gazerwolf

My Graphite DX still does web (slow, simple sites)

That's encouraging news. My guess is if that model will surf the web, then the KK should as well. Is surfing over 3G much slower than over WiFi? As I wrote in my reply to barryem, when using WiFi, turning off javascript and images helps a lot to speed things up.

Gazerwolf · 04-07-2017, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy_D

That's encouraging news. My guess is if that model will surf the web, then the KK should as well. Is surfing over 3G much slower than over WiFi? As I wrote in my reply to barryem, when using WiFi, turning off javascript and images helps a lot to speed things up.

I only ever used it to check the status of internet outages in my area, so I really couldn't judge the speed difference to be honest. It works..it's faster than my phone...but I have a crappy phone.

AnemicOak · 04-08-2017, 12:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy_D

I have been looking at ads for Kindle Keyboards. This one with its serial number beginning B003 that is "Kindle 2 International (AT&T) K2, K2" on the MobileRead Serial Numbers page is being sold cheap. $36. Can it access random websites?

Note FYI, that the Kindle 2 is not the same thing as a Kindle Keyboard, which is the name Amazon later gave to the Kindle 3.

That said I just tried out the browser on my old Kindle 2us (this version is from right before the Kindle 2 intl and uses Sprint instead of AT&T) and was able to load up the CNN mobile site okay (okay within the browsers limitations). It also worked fine on the K3 (Kindle Keyboard).

JSWolf · 04-08-2017, 04:10 AM

The 3G is not unrestricted. You get a limited amount of data other then when connection to Amazon.

shalym · 04-08-2017, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The 3G is not unrestricted. You get a limited amount of data other then when connection to Amazon.

Hmmm...isn't that only on the newer models? Or did they extend that restriction to the K3 and the models before it as well?

Shari

JSWolf · 04-08-2017, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shalym

Hmmm...isn't that only on the newer models? Or did they extend that restriction to the K3 and the models before it as well?

Shari

I believe it's all 3G. It has to do with the hacking done to the 3G to allow tethering.

Atunah · 04-08-2017, 09:10 AM

My K3 (Keyboard) still can use 3G anywhere, its not restricted to wiki and amazon store as my Paperwhite is. The first version of the PW.

I believe what JSWolf is talking about is the limitation of the amount of data one can use each month. I think at some point they put it on there as some idiots would hook up their kindles with the free 3G to do things other than normal browser usage. Was it 50GB a month? Or 20? I can't recall anymore as its been years that was talked about. Don't think they ever advertised that or send us users any info on that. Most normal users would never hit that max anyway.

I used that browser in the past on the road stuck, pulling up a map and info. It worked. I did not have a cell phone in those days yet.

I have used it a while back when my internet went down and I couldn't find where I put my phone at the moment. It happened to be there. I checked on stuff then. Yes it is slow, but not that slow if used on certain sites and with stuff turned off as the OP says. I can see how its nicer to read articles and stuff like that since it would be e-ink. I don't like reading on my tablets much either.

JSWolf · 04-08-2017, 09:22 AM

I think it's less than 20GB as 20GB is a lot of data for mobile data. But yes, it was because some were hacking their Kindles to allow tethering. We did have some discussions on here about that, but the staff put a stop to it as it was stealing the 3G service.

HarryT · 04-08-2017, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I believe it's all 3G. It has to do with the hacking done to the 3G to allow tethering.

Yes, I believe it's 50MB/month, which is more than enough for browsing text-based sites.

Atunah · 04-08-2017, 09:59 AM

Yeah, MB make way more sense than GB. I guess my brain is on streaming video.

So used to talking in terms of GB nowadays with internet stuff.

My phone has 3GB a month and I never use that up. But it still has usable speed after the 3GB, just throttled down to I think 128K. Enough to use simple sites.

JSWolf · 04-08-2017, 10:12 AM

The cell phone plan I have now gives me 20GB of 4G data.

04-07-2017, 06:29 PM	#1
Andy_D Connoisseur Posts: 51 Karma: 435082 Join Date: Apr 2015 Device: none	Are there still any old Kindles with unrestricted 3G? Are there any legacy Kindles that still have websurfing enabled to all websites via the experimental browser over 3G? I know some older models did, but I can't get a definitive answer as to whether the 3G on those old models has been restricted to Amazon and Wikipedia. I vaguely remember reading that Amazon cut back or cut-off this feature even on the models that originally had the capability. I have been looking at ads for Kindle Keyboards. This one with its serial number beginning B003 that is "Kindle 2 International (AT&T) K2, K2" on the MobileRead Serial Numbers page is being sold cheap. $36. Can it access random websites? Thanks for any replies.

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04-07-2017, 09:09 PM	#2
barryem Wizard Posts: 2,459 Karma: 68781975 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Arkansas Device: Paperwhite 4	I can't give you a real answer to your question. I used to have a Kindle 3 with 3G and it was able to access websites with 3G but some update since then may have changed that. The thing is that it accessed only very simple websites and did so very slowly and haltingly. Maybe in an emergency I might have been glad it was there but it wasn't something I'd have used by choice. It also wouldn't access any site with any kind of sophistication at all. It couldn't check my email, at least not by using Yahoo's website. There may have been some other way to access it but it was so slow and jerky and troublesome I wasn't motivated to look for it. It wouldn't let me get into Dropbox to download books. I think it was the same for Gutenberg. I don't actually remember trying it with Gutenberg but I probably did and if it worked I would have remembered that. It was decent on Wikipedia, which was always my main use for it, but my 3G Voyage and Paperwhite do that anyway. It's built in so I can tap a selection and look it up on Wikipedia easily. I'm not sure I ever found any serious use for the web browser. Barry

04-07-2017, 09:40 PM	#3
Gazerwolf Enthusiast Posts: 39 Karma: 1010 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: 2 K2 Int, K4 SO, K4 Keyboard, Kindle DXG,Voyage(broke screen)PW4	My Graphite DX still does web (slow, simple sites)

04-08-2017, 04:10 AM	#8
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,756 Karma: 145864619 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	The 3G is not unrestricted. You get a limited amount of data other then when connection to Amazon.

04-08-2017, 09:10 AM	#11
Atunah Wizard Posts: 1,817 Karma: 23400001 Join Date: May 2012 Location: USA Device: K1/K3/BasicK Voyage/Oasis1/Oasis3	My K3 (Keyboard) still can use 3G anywhere, its not restricted to wiki and amazon store as my Paperwhite is. The first version of the PW. I believe what JSWolf is talking about is the limitation of the amount of data one can use each month. I think at some point they put it on there as some idiots would hook up their kindles with the free 3G to do things other than normal browser usage. Was it 50GB a month? Or 20? I can't recall anymore as its been years that was talked about. Don't think they ever advertised that or send us users any info on that. Most normal users would never hit that max anyway. I used that browser in the past on the road stuck, pulling up a map and info. It worked. I did not have a cell phone in those days yet. I have used it a while back when my internet went down and I couldn't find where I put my phone at the moment. It happened to be there. I checked on stuff then. Yes it is slow, but not that slow if used on certain sites and with stuff turned off as the OP says. I can see how its nicer to read articles and stuff like that since it would be e-ink. I don't like reading on my tablets much either.

04-08-2017, 09:22 AM	#12
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,756 Karma: 145864619 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	I think it's less than 20GB as 20GB is a lot of data for mobile data. But yes, it was because some were hacking their Kindles to allow tethering. We did have some discussions on here about that, but the staff put a stop to it as it was stealing the 3G service.

04-08-2017, 09:59 AM	#14
Atunah Wizard Posts: 1,817 Karma: 23400001 Join Date: May 2012 Location: USA Device: K1/K3/BasicK Voyage/Oasis1/Oasis3	Yeah, MB make way more sense than GB. I guess my brain is on streaming video. So used to talking in terms of GB nowadays with internet stuff. My phone has 3GB a month and I never use that up. But it still has usable speed after the 3GB, just throttled down to I think 128K. Enough to use simple sites.

04-08-2017, 10:12 AM	#15
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,756 Karma: 145864619 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	The cell phone plan I have now gives me 20GB of 4G data.

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