Kindle Touch 3G - no web browsing via 3G?

[Heart_Mom]

Originally Posted by frahse

I am reading this thread from the beginning and so others may have responded to your post.

I have a K3-3G and though the navigation is very tedious, it is nice for browsing in a car on the road. You can download stuff too (other than books) for 15 cents a MB or 99 cents per MB out of the USA except Canada which for some reason doesn't allow it.

Learn to use the keyboard and the navigation well and you will speed up your browsing a lot. It saves old urls, so always go there first and save yourself the trouble of entering all of a url.
Watch your cursor. Sometimes if you try to move it across a lot of little stuff it will stop at each one. Look for larger spaces to traverse so less stops.
The back button is also useful.

The only thing I found was a real loss is downloading a weather map. A gray scale weather map is not very useful in a car at night especially.



Good luck.

Thanks for your tips! I'm at home most of the time, so it's not worth it to me to buy a smartphone-type device. But this will be perfect for the occasional times that it would be helpful to browse the web when I'm on the go.

[cgromte]

I got a reply from the Amazon Executive Customer Relations Dept about the issue and got the form reply that they listen to the needs of all customers and believe this change is best. When I asked how removing this feature benefited the customer since the cost of the device is the same I got a reply that didn't answer the question and said I should try the $79 Basic Kindle since it has all the same features as the previous generation Kindle including 3g web browsing. So this guy saying "Jeff Bezos values you as a customer and wants me to follow up on this" can't even get his own facts straight and is claiming the $79 Kindle has 3g and full browsing when it doesn't even have a 3g radio in it.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by cabbot

Nobody here can give me a "bruisin". The worst they can do is ban me from an internet forum. That is not a big deal at all. In fact I have not even violated any rules...simply pointed out someone's behavior.

Clearly I am not the only one who finds Harry a "difficult" personality. It's the internet and I will not be bullied by someone's private cliques.

If I am censored and Harry is not (his snarky posts in the "action/reaction ebook" thread as an example) it just shows the ridiculous nature of internet cliques. If you disagree with the wrong person...the one with a POWER button...you get banned.

I am not addressing your actions, but I am addressing your anger. HarryT does his job. There are moderators like him, and there are those above them. All in all they are fair. "Fair" meaning equitable.
I am not saying they are always precisely correct, but who is?

I am reasonably sure you can appeal for a review if you feel someone is being unreasonable. As for the outcome of the review, I don't offer any forecast.

[andrys]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is what it says, and this is what it has always said, in the Kindle License Agreement and Terms of Use:


You will note that it is "shop for and download Digital Content from the Kindle Store" that is free. Nothing else. Web browsing falls under the "other services which we may make available" bit.

Amazon Kindle Team posted this week to the Kindle forums (though not here, so you wouldn't have seen it) that they are continuing the free 3g web browsing to all sites for the Kindle 3 (which is now called Kindle Keyboard AND SOLD NOW also).

They're just not including it in the Kindle Touch 3G, which has faster navigation via touchscreen and a faster processor and people would use it more and that wouldn't be good for Amazon who pays for the 3G.

Many of us are quite happy that they are continuing to support the free 3G web browsing on sites BEYOND Amazon and Wikipedia for the older models.

They also confirmed that they are continuing free 3g Wikipedia for ALL Kindles, including the new Touch ones. No other e-reader offers that.

It's available in 100+ countries.

[geoffwood]

Originally Posted by andrys

They also confirmed that they are continuing free 3g Wikipedia for ALL Kindles, including the new Touch ones. No other e-reader offers that.

It's not really free when it costs $50.00 up front.

$50.00 just to be able to access Wikipedia and buy books on the rare occasion when WiFi isn't available is a pretty steep price if you ask me. I expect 3G sales to be off considerably with this generation, and I'll be surprised if they offer it in the next generation Kindle.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by andrys

Many of us are quite happy that they are continuing to support the free 3G web browsing on sites BEYOND Amazon and Wikipedia for the older models.

There's really no reason why they should change their policy for non-touch models.

Accessing the web on my K3 was a slow and tedious process; and because of that, I have no desire to do it again. My guess (have to wait until I try it) is that this experience would be much smoother and quicker on a touch screen; resulting in my probable use of web browsing.

[andrys]

Originally Posted by geoffwood

It's not really free when it costs $50.00 up front.

The iPad basic is $500 and WiFi Only. After a few months, Apple added a 3G model and that was an EXTRA $130 just to have the 3G module. The physical part.

It then of course costs a monthly data plan after that $130 to access sites via that 3G.

So, in that sense, the $50 goes toward the 3G module added. There are no monthly data charges for downloading from Amazon any books (including encyclopedias that are 300megabytes or K-12 books, some of which are 500 megabytes. There is no monthly data charge for 24/7 access to Wikipedia from your book.

The $50 may not be worth it for some for only those two features. That's another matter though.

[geoffwood]

Originally Posted by andrys

There are no monthly data charges for downloading from Amazon any books (including encyclopedias that are 300megabytes or K-12 books, some of which are 500 megabytes. There is no monthly data charge for 24/7 access to Wikipedia from your book.

So it may be useful in times when you desperately need an encyclopedia, but not so desperately that you can't wait the 30 minutes or so it would take to download over 3G, and you are far enough away from a WiFi signal that it wouldn't be quicker just to drive somewhere and log-on.

I think in the real world the use case for 3G on an eReader is becoming marginalized. If I need something quickly I'll use my smartphone, that's what it's good at.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by geoffwood

I think in the real world the use case for 3G on an eReader is becoming marginalized. If I need something quickly I'll use my smartphone, that's what it's good at.

Your smart phone might be good for following links from one site to another, although my employer-provided BlackBerry isn't. A PC is even better at browsing around the internet, plus it is good for typing a web message, as I am doing now.

The Kindle is best for reading texts. Most of the machine-readable texts I read are on the book side of my Kindle, whether actual books, or newspapers, or articles sent using the http://www.klip.me/ tool. But a lot are on the web. Here is an example of a link, originating from an Atlantic Magazine article, "Hacked!", by James Fallows:

tinyurl.com/3k6jyqc

I'm going to say that the above sort of link is a bit better for the Kindle browser than on either a PC browser or a smartphone browser. Turned into a Kindle book, it would be no better or worse.

It's been a long time since I had the original shortcuts that came with my K3, but as I recall they were totally unsuited for the Kindle. Most people probably try them and conclude that Kindle web access is worthless.

[ThomasC]

I have a DXG, my wife has a K3 3g/wifi. We travel internationally quite a bit and have found the web browser to be extremely handy. On holidays, we also tend to buy a lot of Amazon Kindle books to read as well.

I will not buy one of the new Kindles if it has restricted web access. If Amazon restricts web access on my current models, I'm not going to be very happy and I'll definitely let them know how I feel. Experimental or not, you cannot take something away and think that people are going to be happy with this. My view is that the only people happy with this decission are mostly ones who currently have a wifi-only Kindle and are smugly justifying the fact that they were too cheap to buy a 3G version in the first place.

Amazon is selling more and more Kindles and E-books. Surely the cost of free 3G access can be justified from this large increase in sales revenue. Like others, I paid a premium for 3G access and I fully expect Amazon to honor this, not weasel out of it like it looks like they are trying to do.

Cheers,
Tom

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by ThomasC

Amazon is selling more and more Kindles and E-books. Surely the cost of free 3G access can be justified from this large increase in sales revenue. Like others, I paid a premium for 3G access and I fully expect Amazon to honor this, not weasel out of it like it looks like they are trying to do.

There is no suggestion that they are removing free unrestricted 3G browsing from existing K3 devices, just that going forward the new touch models will not have it.

[ThomasC]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

There is no suggestion that they are removing free unrestricted 3G browsing from existing K3 devices, just that going forward the new touch models will not have it.

Does not take too much of a 'mental stretch' to envision this happening imho. Amazon can easily do this anytime.

I think that we need to let Amazon know that the majority of Kindle 3G users do not want restricted web access. Best way to do this is to E-mail them and avoid purchasing the new Touch 3G Kindles that have this restricted web accress.

Cheers,
Tom

[DreamWriter]

Within the last few weeks, Amazon has changed some of the wording on Kindle Keyboard 3G's product page—in particular, under "Experimental Features." Emphasis is mine.

On September 28th, it read:

WebKit-Based Browser
Kindle's web browser is based on WebKit to provide a better web browsing experience. Now it's easier than ever to find the information you're looking for right from your Kindle. Experimental web browsing is free to use over 3G or Wi-Fi. The experimental web browser is currently not available for some customers outside the U.S.

And now it reads:

WebKit-Based Browser
Kindle Keyboard features an experimental web browser based on WebKit to provide a better web browsing experience. Now it's easier than ever to find the information you're looking for right from your Kindle. Experimental web browsing is free.

Note that earlier it was specified that 3G web browsing is free, and now it doesn't differentiate. I don't think that this necessarily means that they've changed their policy regarding Kindle Keyboard's free 3G web browsing. They may have changed the wording so it doesn't look like such an obvious feature downgrade when compared to the Touch 3G's description. It is an interesting change in wording.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ThomasC

I think that we need to let Amazon know that the majority of Kindle 3G users do not want restricted web access. Best way to do this is to E-mail them and avoid purchasing the new Touch 3G Kindles that have this restricted web accress.

They won't listen. Just get the 3G K3 and you'll have unrestricted use. Amazon is not about to give out free web over 3G on any touch screen device. Touch makes it easier to navigate, which in turn leads to more people eating up bandwidth; and that costs Amazon money.

[dhdurgee]

Can the 3G network connection be used with mplayer to play internet radio streams? I may need to replace my WiFi kindle and if this works I would consider an upgrade to the 3G instead of getting another WiFi unit. If you have a 3G unit with mplayer installed and are willing to test this I can provide a copy of the modified control.sh and mplayer.ini that I use to accomplish this.

Dave