Keith,

I have written e-book software for the XO laptop (One Laptop Per Child) which is a terrific device for reading e-books:

http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4035

http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4194

The XO can read DjVu and PDF formats so you have access to every IA book by looking at page images.

Having said that, the Kindle has a MUCH better battery life, stores more books, and fits in my pocket.  The XO laptop does a beautiful job of displaying our EPUBs as it has the full WebKit browser engine as a component.

You could buy a NetBook and install the Sugar software on it to make a nice device for e-books, but you can't read the screen in sunlight (unlike the XO) and the battery life would be inadequate.

I have a Vizio tablet but it has the same problems as a NetBook has.

I like the Nook and Kindle equally.  I probably won't buy a Kindle Fire or a Nook Color because they are more tablets than e-book readers.

I took my Nook on a trip to Europe.  I was reading constantly on the flight over and on two four-hour train trips and only charged it once.  The Kindle is nearly as good.  I'd say these dedicated devices are here to stay.

James Simmons