I've been reading thread after thread after thread and researching ereaders for about 4 months now. I was down to either the Nook, Nook Color, or Sony PRS-650.
Kindle was out for me because of no epubs (although I know you can convert with Calibre), and no expansion slot. But then the $139 price put them back in the running for awhile. I really wanted expansion room though.
Nook... I almost ordered one last week when I found out about several locations selling refurbished Nooks. Compared to the Sony 650, it was bigger and weighed more, and didn't like losing 1" of screen space at the bottom of each page and thought that dead space would annoy me, and clunkier use of the dictionary. But for that price, the drawbacks for me seemed livable. Then I ran across more info pointing out that Nook is still using first gen e-ink screens and that made it far less attractive to me and I ended up not ordering it. I had looked at it at a Barnes and Noble store, but with a salesman there trying to convince me their ereaders are the greatest, I didn't get much hands on time with it. Today I got to look much closer at one at my local Best Buy and found that horrid glossy white frame to be the most annoying thing they could have done. Even though the glare wasn't on the text area of the reader, it was distracting enough that while reading I found myself unconsciously tilting the Nook constantly trying to eliminate that glare. The page turning buttons also seemed really stiff and hard to press. The 1" color area at the bottom of the screen also did annoy me, I found it distracting. My eyes are very sensitive to light, which probably made that glare worse for me than others, but I was very glad I didn't order it.
Nook Color... heavier, bigger, short battery life, not as good for reading outdoors, and more expansive... yet I still found myself strangely wanting this device, probably because of the flashy color. Even though I want it primarily to read books and not much else, it was always there tempting me to buy it. Thankfully I resisted that impulse purchase.
Sony 650 seemed ideal for me. Expansion room, great screen, great everything, but so pricey, especially when there's no wi-fi for that price (nice to have if it's there, but again not something I need). But I just couldn't justify the price.
And yesterday I read about the Sony 350s on sale for $50 less at quite a few locations and decided to give it a try for that price. True there's no expansion room, but I wouldn't trust all my ebooks in one location anyway, so it's really not an issue to just keep a "mere" thousand books on the reader, and transfer others from my PC as needed. I realized how crazy and totally unnecessary it was to want to keep 20,000 books on the reader.
I absolutely love it. The size and weight is so perfect for my small hands, flipping a page with just a slight thumb movement is so effortless, it's perfect. The option of listening to audio books was always something I thought I wanted as well, but I honestly can't remember the last time I actually listened to a book instead of reading, and I have 3 PCs I can use for that or my cell phone, and knew it was just one of those "nice to have" options that in reality I'd probably never use.
If I could find the Sony 650 somewhere still for $199, I might still be tempted to get it for the larger screen. It's less than 1" taller and about .5" wider, and only 2 oz heavier, but still smaller and lighter than the Nooks or Kindle, so don't think that size will bother me at all. But I'm perfectly happy with the 350 for $100 less than the 650.
Maybe my search and final decision will help someone else in their quest for their ideal ereader, it seems like I've been trying to decide forever. And I have to say this forum is the greatest aid I've found in helping me make the decision.
And yes, my first post also, I thought the final decision was fitting for it!
