The Nook
Ok I really cannot budget such a thing right now but I went to B&N (Altamonte Mall) Friday and talked with a Nook evangelist (a steampunker BTW he was talking about downloading Jules Verne from the public domain sites for research on steampunk models). He practically had me sold on it. Not only will it (unlike the Kindle) display the PDF versions it will also support the old Palm pdb file format (of which I have a bunch) as well as the emerging epub standard. You can “load” (their term) books to another Nook user or even another B&N supported device like my Touch. Oh also you can buy or download books now through B&N app on the iPhone and they can be transferred to the Nook later. It will not read (audio) books like the Kindle (guys says B&N is afraid of lawsuits that happened to Amazon) which is a bummer but it does support mp3 (no ogg) player.And like the Kindle you do get ubiquitous and free (but feature limited) 3G wireless access and free wifi in all B&N stores (one of my pet peeves about B&N and Books a Million for that matter). And it has a bay for a Micro SD or SDHC card and the (are you hearing me Apple??) battery is replaceable. Like the Kindle you get a USB cable. I am frankly sold however there are now so many rumors of even more open ebook readers appearing on the market I may just wait a bit but if I had to choose the Nook would definitely be my choice. Unfortunately the stores don’t have demo units till the 30th like everyone else. B&N says they are surprised at the interest and was not prepared. Guys recommends pre-ordering in order to get before Christmas let alone Nov. 30th but that may be hype.