Personally I'd love to have ebook reader. I have tons of books and other reading material.
The problem is.....80% of the books and such I have are PDF's and the PDF format is just not
very good for the current ebook readers. It doesn't support reflowing pages and such so it will
need to scale down. The screens on the current crop of readers the screen are just too small
in that case. There's only 1 larger one out right now (the iRex Iliad I believe) but it also has a
touchscreen and some other features I don't want which makes it way too expensive.

The next generation is supposed to get much larger screens (see the Hanlin V9 that's announced,
it looks REALLY interesting). When I can easily read my pdf books I'll get one instantly. I'm getting
way too tired of reading the books on a laptop or on the pc and there are too many of them to
buy as a paperback, I'd run out of space at home

Early 2008 should be really interesting for readers.

Kindle sold out. Price on EBay $700 to $1100.New books are $10. Text books $70-$100. I didn't see much in the 25 cent to $5 range in their 10000 books available. Browsing what books available very difficult. After seeing a video demonstration I was thinking of getting one. Now after seeing the price structure of downloads I am no longer interested. As a dedicated library user and supporter these prices scare me. Be good for executives, students, travelers and home bound individuals. And for those with money. I WOULD like to have one!

The Kindle does read PDF files and with the latest version of the OS (for want of a better phrase) that was pushed out recently, does a decent job of rendering the PDF files.  Kindle 2.5 also includes some rudimentary organization tools that allow the user to create collections that books can be copied to.

~Chris

I bought my daughter a 2nd generation Kindle, as a Christmas gift.

I really think these things make awesome gifts for kids.. unlike a cell phone or computer, they are purely constructive things.  there is a reasonable chance that your child will not use it much, but there is 0 chance that it will be used to waste their minds away.  And if it does catch their interest, it will open up a huge world of amazing free classic literature to them.