HardBall:

I understand your dilemmas and concerns about size/weight and updates. The others have responded to this well, and I agree fully. Let me give you one algorithm for your decision making.

1. When buying an eReader, and considering the eDGe, you first have to consider whether or not you need to do annotations on the books or pdf's that you read. If you consider annotations to be important, then there is nothing else on the market that will do the job, really. Reading pdf's on the Pocket eDGe is OK, but unless the file does "reflow" well (and most of mine do not) it is tough to read for a long time on the Pocket eDGe. Size and weight are terrific.

2. If you do not have to annotate books/pdf's, then you have lots of choices. Then you have to decide between eInk and an LCD screen (or its many variants). Some people can read an LCD screen without difficulty for long periods. The eDGe is a delight to use because you can easily go back and forth between reading and doing other tasks like web surfing, and email. But you should also consider the iPad, the Kindle, the Nook, etc. I found that the Kindle does not do well with pdf files. Thats why I gave my Kindle away. As stated above, all of these devices (eDGe, iPad) have software to enable the Kindle and Nook books to be read. There is no shortage of books.

Thats how I would go about making the decision.