As a very satisfied Kindle owner, I'll encourage you to take Taylor's advice and go ahead and purchase a device, even if it's not the Kindle.
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At first I was very excited over the Kindle. It has a bunch of wonderful features, but the prospect of not being able to move books onto the desktop/laptop when I am working with them I find extremely unattractive.
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Well, on your PC you can't *read* the DRMed .azw files you purchase from Amazon, but you can read the DRM-free books you purchase from elsewhere. (I actually don't like reading on the PC any way.)
And you can move books onto the PC from the Kindle and then back to the Kindle from the PC. I even back up my books on two external hard drives. Amazon says they will keep a permanent backup on their servers, and so far that's been true, but I just like knowing that I have a safe backup. And, since I've been purchasing from other vendors, I don't want to count on one of them to allow me to download the book later and discover that they don't offer that service.
I spend quite a bit for books each month -- I'm afraid to track how much because my hubby might realize how much it is and try to impose curbs. I also actively trade books both online and in person. I have several hundred TBR books in my family room and a smaller set of "keep forever" books in my spare bedroom. If you were to explore
my bookshelves on BookCrossing, you'd see that I have owned multiple copies of quite a few books. That happens to me if I've purchased a book & not yet read it and then find it in the store again.
Since I keep very few books for the long term, I'm not too worried about my eBooks -- but I also try to buy few of them with DRM protection. The few "new release" books I buy at Amazon are typically much less than 1/2 price of the hardback edition. This offsets the cost of the Kindle itself and gives me immediate gratification to read them *now* instead of having to wait for them to come out in paperback at the same price.
The question really boils down to:
** Will I enjoy using the book reader with whatever content I choose to get?
The current devices aren't perfect. And the current publication and distribution isn't perfect. But I'm still having fun.