Amazon Kindle

$359 just for the reader an $9.95 per book? Am I reading that right? Seems steep to me and the device looks a bit big for a backpack.

Store a library on your mp3!
Then, sul & virtually no charging: on for a week! 2009:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/plastic-logics.html

I would buy one now. The current one has been out for some time and my guess is that it's due for a refresh soon. A touch screen would be nice.

Bill and David: hopefully there will be a growing re-sale market allowing for the adjustment to somewhat of a reasonable price. As for an updated new model with added features, it could also add to the weight.

Steve: I have tried the mp3 and I prefer to actually read material and mull over the words where as the mp3 just keeps on going as well as well as putting me to sleep earlier than I planned.

John,
I agree about the written word vs books on tape. Hopefully there will be books available for the iPhone some day. Then you could have it all!

John
The point with mp3 was not emphasizing audio-books. In fact most e-book readers provide mp3 playback. The e-readers, even with SD card expansion, have capacities well below devices such as mp3 players with over 100 Gig storage. While most do not have large ebook collections some have. Specially if there is plenty of visuals, pictures, as opposed to text which pushes up filesize. This is specially so in certain disciplines, arts architecture design etc., or if the books are scanned as many of you will be spending many hours in the future doing. For some it is relevant as they have a large collection. I resort to unpredictable cross-referencing as well as whims. Storage devices will expand in capacity while shrinking in physical size so it wont be an issue. A phone (iphone does basic text pdf well though small) plus a micro-SD suffices for most as extra storage. e-readers take SD, which are cheap these days if you know where to look, too. There are many exciting e-readers, thin and in color such as by Sony, being developed. Battery life is crucial. I follow the field and would say wait six months if you can.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/index.php
Computers are shrinking and convert to tablets too if you need to do more than reading:

There's actually a neat little app for the iPhone called Stanza. (I think it's still free in the App Store.) Stanza allows you to download several of the classics such as books by Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Jack London, etc. I've even found books by Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. You'll need to download the title while still in cell/wifi range, but I've been able to successfuly read the book (once downloaded) when I'm in "No Signal" territory. So far it's one of my favorite applications. Oh yeah…the downloads are free too!

free ebooks, old/copyright-free:
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

many here, incl. a project funded by uncle Bill (Gates), scanning many old books (large sizish):
http://www.archive.org/details/texts

http://www.google.com/search?q=free+ebooks

Steve and Ryan, Thanks. I had no idea regarding all of the resources. The alternative readers that I have shopped since your post are more expensive than the Kindle. I didn't realize the options available for reading digital files.

There are lots of readers for the iPhone, including ReaddleDocs, eReader, Stanza, and a few standalone books, like “Shakespeare”. There are a lot more coming out. You can also go to the Gutenberg Project and download free books or, the one I use, Manybooks, which has a great selection of books in different download formats, including for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I’m reading a series of horror stories for eReader right now.

I hear, though, that Sony’s Reader is supposed to be a lot easier to use and doesn’t have problems with restricted downloads like the Kindle does.

Miguel,
Thanks for the information!

Any of you smarty pants know if the ebook programs/files will work with the new G1 phone?

Thanks

$179 is more in my price range and I have T-Mobile already.

I have a kindle, and I absolutely love it. You can get all sorts of free out-of-copyright books from for it from project Gutenberg. If I read 30 of these, I will feel the device has paid for itself.

I put a 2GB sd card in mine, and I can carry thousands of books on it.

I haven't taken it camping yet, but I do take it to the park all the time, and it's really easy to read, even in bright sunlight.

Just thought I would point out that the one big difference between the Kindle and Sony reader and other e-book solutions for other platforms… is that the Kindle and Sony reader have e-paper displays… which offer significantly higher resolution than the LCD screen (it's almost like the real printed page apparently)… so they are easier to read. But you have to provide the light if you're reading after dark… just like with a real book.

On those days where I just need to make miles I put my ipod on a good ebook and hoof it!

I was just on Amazon and it is not clear whether the free stuff mentioned on sites listed above by some of the responders is downloadable to the Kindle or can it only access Amazon and the special sites programed into it??

I get my free books from manybooks.net. You can get them in many formats, including Kindle.