Kindle Team responds at the Amazon Kindle forum thread. At the link, you'll see the now clear answer to the questions asked over the last 3 days:
'Posted on Oct 2, 2011 4:42:59 PM PDT
The Amazon Kindle team says:
(AMAZON OFFICIAL)
We apologize for the confusion. Our new Kindle Touch 3G enables you to connect to the Kindle Store, download books and periodicals, and access Wikipedia - all over 3G or Wi-Fi.
Experimental web browsing (outside of Wikipedia) on Kindle Touch 3G is only available over Wi-Fi.
Our Kindle Keyboard 3G will continue to offer experimental web browsing over 3G or Wi-Fi. '
All bolding mine, of course, to emphasize the most salient points.
Finally! Thanks, KTeam. I do appreciate the confirmation, too, that the Kindle Keyboard 3G model (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G) will continue to allow the experimental free web browsing.
Update - To see which countries or areas have the experimental free 3G web browsing enabled on the Kindle Keyboard 3G (Kindle 3 3G-model), see the Listing of Countries with free 3G web-browsing enabled, which references an always-updated table put online at Amazon. UK.
| US: Kindle Fire 7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow 3G web |
UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB | OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB |
Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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I was planning to upgrade from a Kindle Keyboard Wifi to a Kindle Touch 3G but I'm not going to anymore, now that I know it won't have experimental browsing on 3G.
ReplyDeleteFinally, closure. The end of free 3G as we knew it. I hope this means the Touch's web browser will be much improved by the touch interface. I will get in line for the Touch wifi...
ReplyDeleteNo web browsing (except Wikipedia) over 3G on the Kindle Touch for $50? Sorry, no deal.
ReplyDeleteI guess what you get for $50 is Whispersync anywhere there is 3G, instead of waiting to sync over wifi at home. Or if you don't have wifi at home.
It would also allow you to receive books w/o having to manually copy them over USB and receive personal documents at 15c per MB.
No web browsing over 3G on the Kindle Touch? I'll stick with my K3 3G (aka Kindle Keyboard 3G).
ReplyDeleteI don't surf the web that much on my K3 anyway, but I do read articles with links and it is nice to go to that website to use Article Mode to read the linked article.
If/when my K3 wears out, I'll switch to the Kindle Touch. Until then, it's not worth upgrading.
This is such a disappointment for the KT 3G. I use the browser all the time on my K2 for email, facebook, twitter, cnn and more. I also typed up all kinds of documents on the move and use the online syncing with notes.
ReplyDeleteGuess I'll be canceling my order and picking up a K3 3G for now. I really can't believe they killed this feature - it is not as if you can watch Netflix or use Pandora on the non-Fire devices. That low bandwidth free 3G browsing was a killer feature in my mind.
Don,
ReplyDeleteThough I'm big on the 3G web browsing, as I think you've seen, I CAN believe it because RANDOM direct access by Touch to a Link is many times over faster than using the 5 way to go up, up, left, right, until you can get a 'hand' symbol on a link to be ready to click on it.
Add that the new Kindles have faster processer and you have a situation where we'd be using the web browser MUCH more and stay on it longer. They really cannot afford that when they're paying the 3G.
Look how expensive it is. I was looking fwd to the Touch for that reason but obviously, they weren't. But for all my pushing of the 3G web browsing feature, I can't blame them.
Me, I'll leave my house only with the Kindle 3 (or DX) and leave the Touch at home where I can do faster web browsing on it as needed, to follow links, with the WiFi...
Maybe the upside of this is that I'll buy both a K3 and and Fire (perhaps that's what Amazon had in mind :) ). Though, I still can't believe that the data throughput on the KT 3G would be that much higher.
ReplyDeleteYou know, if I was Mr. Bezos, I would have offered the full 3G if you become an Amazon Prime member. (I must be Jeff Bezos' best friend - Kindle, Prime, Cloud Player....)
Don,
ReplyDeleteThey've actually said that one can buy the KFire and an e-ink reader for less than the cost of an iPad or normal 10" Android tablet. For that matter, than most quality 7" ones.
That Asus Transformer Prime is in my view though!
There's no question in my mind that the 3G web browsing would be tons faster and I'd use it a lot more and so would anyone else. Just to touch the spot and have it go, and then go with a faster processor?
They have to answer to stockholders, so I just don't see them changing their mind on that. I'd love to be wrong here...
The faster webbing via WiFi -is- worth something though... And Wikipedia via 3G globally is still amazing.
Well...since the latest software update, my UK Kindle Keyboard 3g no longer enables internet browser access. When I try to launch the browser, a pop-up informs me that I have turned the wireless off and I have to turn it on to enable the experimental browser to launch. So I reckon that in spite of all the official statements from Amazon in WIRED, etc, claiming that the Kindle Keyboard will retain this feature, it looks like mine can no longer use this feature. Phil, Liverpool.
ReplyDeletePhil, ( I don't think people get notices of replies when they post as 'anonymous' so you may never see this. )
ReplyDeleteYour UK Kindle Keyboard problem: The error message popup said only that you had turned the wireless off.
You do have to turn wireless ON in order to use 3G just as you need to when you use WiFi.
You just had it off.
You would have received another error message if it had been about doing an action only possible via WiFi...
So I think you're ok there.