Hi,
Anyone have first hand experience of this for web browsing?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Wireless-Reader-3G-Wifi-Graphite/dp/B002LVUWFE

Advertised as not requiring a contract for 3G connectivity though I have read that the newer Kindles don’t allow web browsing.

My questions are:
– can you still browse the internet, for free, over 3G?
– is the web browser easy to use?

This is for a partially sighted person who lives some where and tablet / laptop and other expensive kit will probably get stolen. Hence the idea of getting a Kindle Keyboard 3G.

Cheers,

James

Hi,
Anyone have first hand experience of this for web browsing?

yup, it’s crap for all but very basic needs

PS the person in mind does not have any prior experience of the internet.

So things like text friendly news websites, etc will probably be the main content viewed.

Still not worth it – it’s not that kind of device, and people don’t generally design their site with the kind of input the kindle offers in mind (i.e. 4 way arrow keys over mouse/touch screen input) just makes navigation a pain and not enjoyable.

It got me through my first two months in Afghanistan before we got real internet set up. Its very clunky, slow and difficult to use. For example it would take me maybe 10 minutes to get my facebook page up. That’s probably more a reflection of the state of Afghan telecoms than how bad the Kindle is though 🙂
For a partially sighted person – forget it, it’ll be absolutely useless (probably also usless for reading books as the screen isn’t backlit).

It’s fairly clunky as said and slower than a normal brower, but for reading forums like this it’s fine, struggles with gifs though.

I use mine fairly often when on holiday to check football scores, and a few forums for bits and bobs.

Not sure about the above poster, but a kindle is way better than a book for partially sighted as you can ramp the font size right up – I haven’t tried it for the brower.

A potentially cheaper and better option would be to get an old PSP1000, dirt cheap and runs quicker, plus backlit and you can adjust the page layout much easier. Oh and it runs gifs etc. Humm, just noticed, not 3G though.

It will be worse than useless for a partially sighted user who is new to the tinternet.

I’ve used ours overseas quite a bit – it’ll do at a pinch, but as Rockhopper says, it’s slow and difficult to use. I was using it for checking mail and news site browsing.

Maybe consider a Nexus tablet and a cheap handset with wifi tethering – Nokia Lumias now do it, and there are some very cheap deals around – £7 a month for a 710, from memory.

[edit] Saccades – would you want to touch it with a bargepole if it was your only internet terminal for day to day browsing as a new web user? From my experience, I think it would put anyone off. :)[/edit]