After working on a computer all day, doing some web surfing, blogging, writing, etc., then sitting down to read for an hour or two, everything goes swimmy after a bit, my eyes start watering and I literally can't read anymore on a backlit device. I hope to buy some kind of eink device with my Christmas bonus, so I have a little time to decide, but Amazon needs to get its act together.
I agree that the reader can be more expensive *if* the books are affordably priced.* To carry on the iPod comparison that has come up, does there need to be a range of e-reading devices? An ebook Shuffle, a Nano, at reduced prices? Many people have more than one iPod--a large-capacity iPod that acts as a storage device for one's digital music collection, a Shuffle for working out, a Nano for carrying around so the expensive player with the thousands of dollars worth of downloaded music can stay safely at home. As someone has already said in this thread I believe, who wants to take a $300 eink reader to the beach?
*Everybody has their own notion of what is affordable; since I hope to use my ereader as a way to cut down on book storage space requirements, I'm perfectly willing to pay the equivalent of a trade paperback price for a new hardback or trade paperback book and the same price as an MMPB for a book available in that format. HOWEVER--for that price I want portability of files between devices. So I don't think we're quite there yet. That's why I think the Kindle has such great potential; the manufacturer (or at least end retailer) of the device is also a bookseller, and it's in their interest to keep their customers happy and able to read their books as they upgrade their devices.