Kindle 3G - data limit

concentrik

concentrik

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Those of us using Kindle for email, weather etc whilst aboard might find it a bit less useful in future as Amazon have introduced a 50MB per month data limit. Not much cake there, and I was told I'd eaten all mine last night.

Back to the local data sims then I suppose...... anyone advise on the best French/Spanish SIM at the moment? I don't have a local address.....
 
Rats! There goes live on-line TMS cricket (perhaps a blessing at present).

Always wondered whether they could sustain it as free and unlimited...shades of the Hoover free flights fiasco.

Question is, does this amount to a retrospective change of purchase conditions: no such limits applied at the time most of us bought our Kindles (and entered into a contract with Amazon which they may now have breached).

Class action, anyone?
 
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Right from the beginning Amazon stated that the 3G browser facility was "experimental", so they could remove it completely if they so wished, I'm surprised that they've kept it going for so long.
 
macd said:
Surely they said (and the Kindle itself still says) that the browser was 'experimental', not the 3G? The 3G Kindle was advertised and sold as having free 3G, with no mention of any limit.
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Pretty sure the "free 3G" was for downloading books. Which it still is. From memory amazon always kept fairly quiet about free web access.
 
Conachair said:
Pretty sure the "free 3G" was for downloading books. Which it still is. From memory amazon always kept fairly quiet about free web access.
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Posts on other forums suggest that the 3G Kindle had been extensively 'hacked' to enable it to be used to provide internet access to normal computers - a sort of faux MiFi. Amazon tired of providing free bandwidth.

So now it's gone........pretty much.

Question: What's a suitable replacement combination of tablet and SIM/dongle which allows paid for 3G access in Europe? Is anybody doing this already?
 
concentrik said:
Question: What's a suitable replacement combination of tablet and SIM/dongle which allows paid for 3G access in Europe? Is anybody doing this already?
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In terms of tablet, pretty much any - I cheat a bit and use an Android phone with a local SIM, set that up as a WiFi hotspot and have the tablet connect to that.

For SIMs, it's pretty much a case of one for each country - the "roaming SIMs" the I've looked at come in at about €0.50/MB, which will work out expensive.

I use an Orange 'Let's Go' in France (prepaid, €0.07/MB - there's probably better offers now; in particular, check out http://free.fr) and a WIND Q-card in Greece at €5/500MB. Surprisingly, the Orange shop in France (a) knew what I wanted and (b) just sold it to me, topups and all; the Greeks want copies of passports before handing one over and the WIND shop couldn't sell a top-up card..

--Dave
 
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3g data limit

On phone deals many networks say data limit e.g 500mb. Does this mean you can only download 500 mb of files i.e music/video or does browsing use megabytes?

Sorry I know this is going to be a really stupid question to anyone that knows, but I don't understand technology & my main reason for getting a new phone is so I can browse a specific webpage 3 days per week in relation to my work.
 
Mobile PAYG SIMs are highly capricious in price, frequently depending on marginal pricing decisions.
Last time I was in French waters I got the best deal from Bouygues, over the phone from their telesales.
WIND in Greece gave me a whole season of free mobile data and I found TIM were generally the best value for money in Italy.
I currently have a contract with Vodafone Greece which gives me 5Gb for €30/month - when I'm away I revert to €5/month to keep the contract running.
My impression is that UK and France are the most expensive for cellular fees and Finland is the cheapest.
 
concentrik said:
Those of us using Kindle for email, weather etc whilst aboard might find it a bit less useful in future as Amazon have introduced a 50MB per month data limit. Not much cake there, and I was told I'd eaten all mine last night.

Back to the local data sims then I suppose...... anyone advise on the best French/Spanish SIM at the moment? I don't have a local address.....
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Last week I bought a 1GB Vodafone Spanish Internet only SIM card that fits nicely in my old phone which I then activate ad a mobile access Point for the boat. I was paying Vodafone UK £2 per day for 25mb. The SIM with 1GB cost 34 Euro and will expire in 3 months without top up.
 
I've just had a conversation with Kindle Support over a warranty issue (handled very efficiently I might add!) and in passing enquired about this new 3G data limit. According to the chap at Amazon it only applies to 3G use abroad, UK use is unaffected. He couldn't tell me exactly when it was brought in only 'during the last month or two'.

Pity, I used my Kindle for email when I was abroad on a road trip last year, but then again it was so slow that it wasn't such a great experience anyway. But at least I should still be able to use it for weather info when sailing in UK which was my main concern.

p.s. the reason for the warranty call was because my Kindle has developed very fine stress cracks at both lower corners of the screen, just above the keyboard. It has just a couple of weeks warranty left and is being replaced with no quibble whatsoever (much to my surprise!).
 
carmatsuk said:
Sorry I know this is going to be a really stupid question
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Yep :)

carmatsuk said:
On phone deals many networks say data limit e.g 500mb. Does this mean you can only download 500 mb of files i.e music/video or does browsing use megabytes?
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The limit is on the amount of data you pull down from the phone network. To look at a Web page, you need to pull in the text, pictures, layout information, etc that make up the page. These are all data, and they all have a "weight" in megabytes.

Unfortunately it can be a little difficult to judge exactly how much data is loaded for each page, they can vary wildly depending on how they're put together even if there seemingly isn't that much visible text. A 500mb / month limit is reasonably large though - I think that's what I have, I don't come near half of it most months and I use my phone very freely.

Pete
 
rjp said:
is being replaced with no quibble whatsoever (much to my surprise!).
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At the end of the day, if you don't have a working Kindle then you won't buy books from them.

They replaced mine when the screen went weird (common fault) even though it was long out of warranty.

Pete
 
prv said:
At the end of the day, if you don't have a working Kindle then you won't buy books from them.

They replaced mine when the screen went weird (common fault) even though it was long out of warranty.

Pete
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Thanks Pete, that's very interesting to know.
 
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