Choosing an e-reader

I have decided to get one, because my text books are getting rather heavy and I don't like trashing my books, and a lot of the times I want to read PDF documents (take PRISM 4 as an example).

I have had a look at a Kindle, and like the fact that you can view text from all angles, but it is not in color (most books are not so why am I complaining?) and that it is light and very power efficient. I don't like the Amazon branding at all, or the fact that you control it with buttons and not a touch screen. It is very lightweight, but seems overpriced for what it is.

There is the new Nook that looks very good but is the underlying OS any good. I also know that theye are due to be a few new Android tables out so is it worth waiting for one of them or is the iPad the pick of the bunch even though it is expensive?

Well, the main advantages of a e-Ink reader are that it is a very good reading experience and the battery life is extraordinarily long.  The main downside is that they are greyscale only so reading magazines/comics is not so good.

The Nook (the e-Ink version, not the colour version) still has that colour screen along the bottom and I don't know how that affects battery life.

The new Sony reader has the newer e-Ink screen (more contrast, faster refresh) and they've updated the touch-screen technology so it doesn't interfere with the contrast.

I went with the cheapest e-Ink reader I could find last year -- doesn't have a touch screen or a keyboard but I don't use either of them anyway (I treat it just like a paperback). It does me perfectly well for reading fiction, but I find it a bit slow for textbooks (hard to flick back and forth between multiple pages).

Herbie

Have gotten used to your WP7, don't you miss the touch enabled browsing? I really am rather fond of the touch screen on my phone and would hope any tablet/reader would contain this as well.

I will nip intp the Sony shop (if they have any) and have a look at that reader. A 50% improvement is a lot, and it has something the Kindle lacks.

I don't miss touch on my e-Book, but mainly because it doesn't scroll; it just shows static text and refreshes the entire page. I'm not normally an early adopter, so my main criteria last year was price rather than features beyond e-Ink.

I'm starting to miss touch on my desktop PC though -- especially when I'm using Media Centre 

Herbie

The main downside is that they are greyscale only so reading magazines/comics is not so good.

My labmate has a Kindle 3G, and he told me how great it is for reading comics... Then again, he's Japanese, and 99% of Japanese comics are in black and white.

I bought the Sony PRS-600 last year.. unfortunately it was fairly slow (with textbooks it was painfully slow), the unit also had a slight glare to the screen and the Google Free books (pdf format) had several issues the most obvious being poor contrast.

Sony released the latest 6 inch touch screen the PRS-650.. I sold my old eReader and based off many reviews (YouTube demos etc) I took a chance.  All I can say is, the latest is nearly perfect.. the screen glare is gone.. it loads pages twice as quick and the contrast issues and some flow problems have all been corrected.  The touch is awesome especially for making notes in textbooks.. I plan on getting a tablet early next year but I will always have a reader for well reading

Now if Sony would only fix thier windows application.. maybe they could switch to Silverlight