[boswd]

nook color sounds to be hands down the winner outside of 3G, but being on a campus and at home, finding a wifi connection shouldn't be much of an issue

The Pdf support and features is really solid, despite what some kindl owners may claim.
epub support the ability to pinch to zoom, pan back and forth without the sluggishness of eink. plus if some of your PDF have color introduced again it makes it a much better choice than even the Kindle DX which will be handicapped due to the slowness of eink as compared to the instant pan and scan and zoom that eink just cannot compare to LCD tech. It just can't.

also the look up word feature not only gives you a dictionary def. but also Google search and wikipedia options as well.

also the touch highlight feature and the ability to send passages or notes to your email or facebook etc could be advantougous for school work.

the note taking is head and shoulders above the kindle.

reading for hours on end will be whether or not you mind reading on an lcd screen. I find with some adjustments to the screen ie brightness and background colors, I find reading on it fantastic, the text is sharp, reading in low light is a joy. Magazines and newspapers imho are just incredible.