Cowboom pre-owned Kindle Keyboard Wifi + 3G $45 shipped plus tax

Quote from gibsonbass : How about browsing mobile site?

Its an extremely slow device (take a ~4 year old cheapie android tablet, cut that speed in half). The browser has rarely been updated over the last few years. No flash, no java apps, etc. You key something in, hit the 'go' button and wait 10 seconds.

Bear in mind I'm pretty frugal, so if this really worked at all for more than quickly checking your email or looking up some fact I'd have kept using it. But if you tried to do what would take you 10 minutes on a decent smart phone or tablet with a regular 3g connection or wifi, you'd still be at it a half hour later and you'd be annoyed to boot.

Quote from travfar : I haven't found that to be the case at all. I get solid 3G in much of the world. It does tend to drop to edge while I'm on a bus in the middle of the Atacama desert though. The only thing that keeps it from being a full browser is that it does support multiple windows. So if you click a link that would open a window, it chokes with an error message. The browser on the 3 has the same backend as Safari and Chrome. Although don't expect to type out long emails on the keyboard. It gets tiring.

I agree on the keyboard. But having 'the same backend' (its a webkit based browser) doesn't mean much when the front end doesn't support half the commonly used web capabilities.

I can't agree on the 3g connection, and my experiences in talking to other users seems to mirror mine. When casually poking around (ie, google search) its fine, but if you measure the throughput you'll see that after a few seconds of hard data pulling, you get throttled down to <100Kb/s and it stays there. I live smack next to an at&t tower too...maybe 1/2 mile away with line of sight? And that was the case when I used the device around the area, which is festooned with at&t towers.

This is intended to deliver books and other content, its browsing capabilities are a considerable subset of what you'd get even on an older android 2.x tablet or phone.

I had low expectations and they weren't met. I just hate to see someone fork over cash to buy something because someone with even lower expectations than I have feel its a good buy. If your expectations are "I'm going to keep this plugged in to a charger in the car and I can whip it out and look up some directions or send an email a few times a week..." then you'll be happy. If your expectations are "I'm going to give this to xxx and they can use it for half an hour a day to do their facebook, banking and so forth"....welll....'xxx' is going to hate your guts in about 2 days.

Quote from sklar : I agree on the keyboard. But having 'the same backend' (its a webkit based browser) doesn't mean much when the front end doesn't support half the commonly used web capabilities. I can't agree on the 3g connection, and my experiences in talking to other users seems to mirror mine. When casually poking around (ie, google search) its fine, but if you measure the throughput you'll see that after a few seconds of hard data pulling, you get throttled down to <100Kb/s and it stays there. I live smack next to an at&t tower too...maybe 1/2 mile away with line of sight? And that was the case when I used the device around the area, which is festooned with at&t towers.

I have a completely difference experience. Many times when I post here on SD it's using my Kindle. Even while sitting on top of a mountain in Peru.

Many of those other commonly used web capabilities don't make sense on the Kindle. Multiple tabs/windows would just be a hassle. Flash support doesn't make much sense on a e-ink display. 90% of the pages I go to work just fine. In fact, I can't think of one that doesn't work off hand. Gmail was busted for a while, it just hung forever during the first load although multiple refreshed tended to get it going. It's been working fine again for about the last month.

Quote from sklar : I agree on the keyboard. But having 'the same backend' (its a webkit based browser) doesn't mean much when the front end doesn't support half the commonly used web capabilities. .

Is the keyboard of any use if you are just looking at books? I am looking for a cheap kindle for my 8yrd son because I am tired of over due fines at the library because he cannot find the books.