It did! I took one with me when traveling by sea for a few weeks and it was great to be able to download the news whenever a scrap of 3G appeared from whatever

It did! I took one with me when traveling by sea for a few weeks and it was great to be able to download the news whenever a scrap of 3G appeared from whatever remote island or coastal outcrop. I even remember using the janky browser to try find a hotel when arriving somewhere in the middle of the night when everything was closed. Sadly the "free worldwide 3G" offering has died in recent Kindles, making them less useful as a travel device. My experience with the Kindle 3G back in the day made me feel like there should be some kind of international public service set up to provide free worldwide internet, just enough to send email and download the news and weather. I think if you have a high-end phone you can buy eSIMs nowadays that should work in multiple countries, but there's something appealing about the idea that people would never have to worry, just knowing that wherever they end up, with whatever device they have available to them, they'll be able to access basic informational services in their own language.