Kindle Myths from news websites, No. 1

For weeks, I have seen gadget- or ereader-info sites parroting one another with inaccuracies such as actually writing that the Kindle does not allow the Kindle-user to go anywhere but to the Amazon store.
  It's not just one or two that write this, but site after site that repeats this erroneous info or writes that the Sony-store-only wireless for the coming Sony PRS-2121 will do what the Kindle wireless feature does.

  The sites I most enjoy because they are more thorough than that are Wired, Engadget, and Boy Genius.

  When a site has deleted a Comment of mine that lets them know something stated isn't actually so (quite often) and when they are holding current notes which means current readers won't see that their info is wrong, I will post some of these here.  Eventually Google.com and people looking for information on what the Kindle wireless does involve will be able to find the information then.

ZIKKER.COM ARTICLE
UPDATE: Allie Vance, noted below, re-posted an article by Shawn Oliver  (See Comments to this blog entry) but the comment I submitted to their comment box was "pending moderation."  I've since reposted the note to Shawn Oliver at HotHardware.com and reworded the below.

Last night, someone on Twitter pointed us to zikkir.com's article, a re-posting by Allie Vance, commenting on In-Stat's much-distributed article that reported that

"...current e-book owners desire email capability in the next e-book they purchase.  Longer battery life and Internet connectivity are the top two desired features among respondents who don’t currently own an e-book but plan to buy one in the next year.”

Yes, I can see that.  But then the article actually says the following

' ...but by and large, today’s batch of readers only feature a few (or one) of those, and not all three.
  Take the market-leading Kindle for example.  It has integrated WWAN through Sprint, but that only enables users to download new books on the go.  Users can’t check their e-mail or surf the Web, which is evidently a real bummer to most.

WHAT THE KINDLE ACTUALLY CAN DO, WEB-WISE
  Could anything be less true? -- that the Kindle can't surf the web or allow you to check your email?  Countless Kindle forum threads include discussions on what sites Kindle users can access and how that can be very helpful when you're not at home.  I have a freely-downloadable file of mobile-optimized websites to surf more quickly.

  I also have tips on using the web browser's various modes to help the loading speed or readability of the sites.  Never mind that Amazon itself puts a pre-set bunch of web-bookmarks on for Kindle users to try.
  But cellular wireless access will be slow, and the Kindle web access is definitely for the patient.  It pays off for some of us info-grabbers on the go though.

WIRELESS 24/7 W/NO MONTHLY CHARGES, CURRENTLY (K1, K2, K3, and DX's)
That this comes with no monthly charges for now is just another plus, and Jeff Bezos has said it is a reason he set the price of the Kindle higher instead of locking people into a 2-year monthly fee on top of the unit, as is done with cell phones.
  The high cost of wireless is why the other readers don't and won't, for some time, be including web-browsing access in their e-readers as part of the cost -- not iRex at $800++, not Plastic Logic at $600-$800 as expected, and not Sony readers, including the Daily Edition due in December.

MY STILL-HELD RESPONSE ON THE ZIKKER SITE  
which shows "No Comments" currently.   [Update: 9:57 PM - it was deleted.]

" Andrys says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
September 16, 2009 at 4:36 am

Well, the Kindles, starting with Kindle 1 all have web browsers, though it’s impossibly slow on the Kindle 1. It is very doable on the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX and I do email on it and browse all kinds of sites to look up things when out on the streets. See some web images from my DX at
http://www.pbase.com/andrys/kindleplus

I also have tips and guides for using the web browser in more speedy fashion (it’s 24/7 free cellular access) and I use it for lookups in stores, in concerts, hearings).  Email is slow going with GMail but it’s doable and I also check yahoo mail.

On the Kindle two, I show some time with Facebook and with the Amazon forums,
at http://www.pbase.com/andrys/kindle2

Forgive the links, but since you mentioned these are wanted items but the Kindle doesn’t allow it, I needed to let you know it very much does. I also have a file for accessing mobile-optimized sites but you’ll see what I could get with the normal webpage of Engadget at the first link above.

– Andrys
kindleworld.blogspot.com