I have the cheap $79 Kindle from walmart, but I've read enough books on it so far to make up for the price. I get a book and pay $7 - $20 for a physical copy, and I can get an electronic version at half or even less. The Kindle pays for itself as an investment in the first little bit I own. Not to mention the amount of free books you get that are out there in the public domain that you would have to pay for if you wanted to buy a print version for. It is difficult to read from your ipod, I've tried before I bought my kindle - it just doesn't feel right and after a while it really hurts your eyes. The kindle has a screen that makes it look like you are reading print (or at least the one I bought) and it makes for easy reading. 

I have to say I was totally wrong.  I have several kindles now. Love them.

And I was going to say you were totally right.  Everyone I know has Nooks.  Not a single family member or a friend has a Kindle. One of the company owners who hires me rather often had a Kindle, but he switched recently to an Apple slab of some sort.

Project Gutenberg has more free books than you could ever read.

ManyBooks.net has fewer but more "quality control"

The iPad is a painful eReader compared to the kindle/nook and filled with distractions. Shorter battery life and it's like reading while looking into a light bulb.

The iPhone screen is much to small to do serious reading.

You can buy a kindle for less than seventy bucks and stock that with the classics for free.

In my opinion the kindle is not a jack of all trades but a master of one.

The jack of all trades is the Nook Color.  Of course, it is also the master of none.

Yeah, with falling prices and some software improvement, kindles have got their little market pretty well cornered at this point. It's interesting to be able to read for years of opinions in one short thread, though.

Personally I read Kindle books on my phone, and only when a physical copy of the book isn't available, but I know there's a fair few people who like to be able to slide their dataslate out and read a book, even in non-travel situations. Lots of folks don't care to deal with the physicality of books after all.

Brad...I was going to suggest that you might be....

As you know, Terry is as 'blind as a bat' and would typically end up with cramp in the hands holding her typical thick paperbacks AND a magifying glass close to her face hour after hour......

Now she can resize the font on  a Kindle...to a few dozen words per page-turn and life's a breeze....other than the constant page refreshes meaning the charge lasts about a day.....recharged every night....

Really cool going back in time.

My wife and i just bought 2 koboglow one each and we do not regret getting it. way cool.

this was actually a good necro.  Frogboy, you may have gone to an alternate future that branched off from our timeline  , likely due to a butterfly effect if you didn't hear about some calamatous, Kindle-destroying event during your trip.

My mom gave me a Paperwhite for my birthday but said she would exchange it for a Kindle Fire if I wanted.  I chose to stick with the dedicated e-reader to minimize distractions and force myself to read more (I still get distracted and go to the computer but my laziness sometimes prevents that).

use ipad.

works wonders

Ipad is an interesting choice but the battery does not last long enough.

My ipad 2 last approx 10 hours if being used continuously (for movies, or games), and more than 10 hours if I let it sleeps between use. I found that reading in ipad is less exhausting than reading in laptop. I like the sephia theme in iBook too