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Kindle DX
or whatever is up now, stubbornly didn't do much in improving the core functionalty. Hopefully it's the same in hackability (isn't it so, igorsk? are you alive still? haven't heard from you lately....). So I'd rather refine my requirements for a "desirable" Kindle 4.0 (or 5.0?):
-- full support of Unicode, CJKV, PDF, OpenOffice, all major ebook formats: one just cannot be "half-pregnant";
-- Pixel Qi technology (touch) 9...10" screen, leave that eInk stuff for cheaper (<$150) Kindle2 level or so models ;
-- Linux tablet formfactor, with a bigger battery, "netbook" (Atom 1.7 GHz, or better) architecture. Maybe slider type keyboard;
-- all the major cell radios (or at least upgradeable to whatever), plus WiFi, WiMax, magicJack "life" (I presume it's extra $150) support over WiFi as a base option;
-- you say your last creature is also useful for college students, let's do it really really useful: a good camera capable of making good shots of whatever pages of textbooks one such student can lay his hands in his/her university, or public (free) library. Good OCR software for it. Art students would love a decent video camera, to simultaneously record some technique demonstration classes while doodling their own masterpieces on the tablet;
-- did you know that "partially available" books in GoogleBooks are actually available in full, one just needs to do enough "smart" googlesearches on a text of a book in question. There should be some scripts/routines doing it for you automagically. Amazon's elibrary is a microscopic non-entity compared to what GoogleBooks has an access to;
-- sure all the original netbook/tablet functionality stays, and with a price tag of $500....$800 you being a poor student can save on a separate netbook ($350....$500) and even separate "smart" phone (smarting you out of ~$1K a year, nicht wahr?)
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