This is my first post so, Hi everyone
Maybe I can help as I'm almost in your situation. I've been thinking about purchasing an e-book reader on and off for years, what stopped me from buying was price and in Kindles case not being able to buy books from Swedish authors (I'm Swedish, but prefer reading in the authors language).
When we started to sell Ipad's at work the thought of getting an e-book reader emerged again. After comparing the available ones on the market my choice fell on Kindle 3, light, pearl e-ink and a very reasonable price.
I spent quite some time reading up on how to convert from DRM Epub to MOBI only realising that the largest e-book store uses watermark EPUB (as I understand you only need Calibre to convert it to MOBI, no DRM removal possible/needed). I also realised that the Swedish book stores price the e-books close to the hard cover price
(Unlike Amazon's price that's close to the paperback).
Amazon carries my favourite authors, price is good, the Kindle is cheap so it wasn't a hard choice for me.
On the rare occasion I find a good Swedish book I'll just borrow it from the library (Let Calibre + plugin remove Epub DRM).
Now I just want to get my hands on it, my brother in-law in the UK will bring it for Christmas
I bought it from Amazon UK, £109 free shipping to UK. You lads/lassies living in the US are lucky, if I order from Amazon to Sweden I have to go through Amazon US which will add 25% tax + shipping + Swedish customs handling fee.
@Care, I don't know about B/N. But regarding Amazon as I've been reading up on the Kindle, I can inform you that the only thing you need to do to be able to shop from the US is to change your location to US (US address), If you move to UK you change to a UK address and can shop from there.
Peter