I will say that, though not while drunk, the second panel has proven very useful several times (I have a crappy old cell phone).

It's not a great browser but sometimes it is really nice that it is a bigger display than any cell phone browser (especially when using google maps).

Can you freely surf the web, or is it limited to pre-selected sites?

Can you take notes with it?

You can take notes on the books. You can't take notes on the Web.

You can go anywhere you want on the web but you are essentially doing it with a WAP browser. Limited javascript, no flash, thinks display wonky since few sites have WAP stylesheets.

Plus it is a slow display and there is no scrolling so it breaks into pages that you have to navigate.

It is not a fun browsing experience but for most of my regular "on the fly" data needs it has proven functional. My preferred movie showtimes web site doesn't work because it uses frames combined with javascript. But I found another that does ok.

But you could for example, post to LoT from your Kindle?

Theoretically yes, but have you seen the LoT on a WAP browser? It's pretty awful.

I would expect so, though I haven't tried.

vBulletin pages are very clunky from a WAP perspective though so just browsing the site to get to a point where you want to post is probably not very practical. But if you have a specific purspose I'd guess it could be done.

I'll try now.

What I'm wondering is how good of a student tool this could be.

Access to all the books, wiki and other sites is a good start. If I could custom build a web site that worked with the Kindle for taking notes, class schedules, IM'ing, etc... it might be a very nice tool.

Posted from my Kindle. Not too bad with specific task in mind but definitely would not surf here as recreation.

The rumors are that the next Kindle release will be a larger screen version specifically intended for better display of large textbooks.

That said, I would say that the Kindle is not the appropriate tool for the things you describe. It is intended almost entirely as a reading device and it is pretty good at that. The web capability is just a byproduct of the need to wirelessly get the books from Amazon to your Kindle and is not a particular area of support (and as the comic alludes in the hover text is not a guaranteed feature over time).

Text entry into the Kindle is extremely slow. You can not type quickly on it and so wouldn't really be appropriate for live note taking, IMing, or anything requiring lengthy or formatted text entry (all text entry is of a single line. You can't do even paragraph and certainly know complex formatting).

Plus, the Kindle has great battery life when used as a reading device. The e-ink display takes almost no energy and minimal processor use; just pushing a single button every minute or so while reading a book means the battery lasts for days when you're just reading. But do anything that requires a lot of processing time (such as web browsing) or constant refreshing of the e-ink display (such as a lot of text entry) and battery life isn't great.

:eek: