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Yep. Not only do the new e-ink screens extend battery life, many people find them way easier on the eyes than an LCD screen. Many of us find it worth the money to have battery life measured in days and readability similar to paper. Personally, I found reading a little on my HTC6800 was ok when I had a moment to kill, but I did not enjoy reading for hours at a stretch on it. Yes, part of the problem was the size, but mostly it was the eye strain.
There are downsides to these new screens besides the price, of course. There are no color options in production. The screens are slow to redraw which really limits the applications. Someday I'm sure we'll have efficient screens that are this comfortable on the eyes, larger, faster, cheaper and color whether it's electronic ink or some other technology. We're just not there yet. Personally, I'm happy to leave the web browsing, videos, etc., to my computers and my smartphone which do them quite well in exchange for this screen as it is now for books. When this future ultra-portable, all-in-one device appears that is just as good for reading books as it is for watching a video I'll be first in line to get it. For now, I'm happy having more than one device. For the amount I read, $300-$400 is worth it. I think that price point is still high for most people, though. I think readers as they stand are still very much an early-adopter product. I'm sure we'll look back to these years from now and chuckle the same way we do about "mobile" phones the size of bricks or monochrome CRTs.
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