2 COMMENTS

  1. Excellent review, thanks — and impressively video recorded using the iPhone 4. I will spread the world about EbooksForTroops.org

    I am still not clear about the Kindle’s Internet capabilities. Suppose I buy the Kindle 3 (with 3-G) for the list price of $ 189. Will this allow me — without paying an ISP or other connection fees — to:

    –Go to Google and search the Web ?
    –Read the NY Times online ?
    –Upload photos to Flickr ?
    –Log in to my web email and then send emails ?
    –Download ebooks from, say, Project Gutenberg ?

    Is there a connection limit, based on time or (downloaded) traffic?

    It all sounds too good to be true, so for now I will assume that it is too true to be good.

  2. Michael,
    The web browser for Kindle 2 is best with mobile-device optimized sites that have mainly text. While the Kindle 3 web browser is based on WebKit, and will be more capable, it’s still eInk, with its limitations and the use would be similar.

    If you live in the U.S. or something like 50 other countries, 3G web browsing is enabled but they obviously hope people will use WiFi for most browsing since Amazon charges no hourly or monthly data charges but must pay for it.

    Yes, you can search using Google, and the new K3 will let you go into ‘article mode’ and get mainly the body of a page w/o the side links and so many images.

    The NYTimes online is reachable via text-only basis and I have links to that in a freely downloadable bookmarks file at http://bit.ly/mobiweb .

    Uploading photos to Flicker, no. It’s not really built for graphics or heavy-time use of the web like that, as Amazon pays the web-data costs.

    You can log into m.gmail.com — I read if I need to any urgent email (seldom) but I try not to write anything longer than a few sentences, with that keyboard. It’s not an ideal experience.

    Project Gutenberg: Yes, you can download MOBI or PRC files and there is a “Magic Catalog” that you can download to your Kindle which you can browse or search and then you can click on a book link to get a book direct to your Kindle. Since it’s from Proj Gutenberg site servers, there’s no charge.
    http://bit.ly/kgutenb

    No connection limits – but the slowness will keep you to minimal use of it.

    I use it for look-ups (restaurants, movies, anything not super time consuming). Also, for driving directions when lost.

    See http://bit.ly/kdriving

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