For me, the EE was the only game in town (still is, to the best of my knowledge). I wanted an eInk screen, 9.7" or greater and really, really good pdf capabilities. When I bought the EE, the only other major 9.7" eInk was the Kindle DX (still is, I think), and at the time, it was only $10 or $20 cheaper than the EE. And, I've heard it's pretty bad with pdfs. I've heard even the new, improved version is still bad with pdfs, but I haven't played with one.

I wonder if they should have tried to get Google support via Google books, which has pdf and epub (Kindle doesn't do epub at all and pdf-?). Lots of the old, out of copyright books on Google books would be painful to read on a 6", especially with any illustrations in the text. I've tried to read them on my laptop, and it's not pleasant, though the response times and features like zoom work much, much better.

And, add me to the list of not wanting to read books on an lcd. Florescent lighting makes my eyes fatigued, and the florescent backlighting on the lcd is no exception. So, Kindle, iPad, Nook, etc all are not very suitable for what I want. Maybe in the future...