If you are looking to save some money you can try looking on ebay, craigslist, or this forum for a used sony prs-500. It may not be the nicest looking, most capable, or feature packed ebook reader but you should be able to purchase one for around 150 if you shop around. That option is probably your best way to go if you want e-ink and the lowest possible price while still getting a capable reader.
I am not sure if you have had any encounters with a e-ink reader before, if not I encourage you to go and take a look at a sony prs-505 in a local store. The bestbuy's and circuit city's near me tend to always have one on display that you can mess around with and get a feel for how an e-ink display will look, and every time that I have been in those stores I never see anyone messing around with the device. This will allow you to spend as much time as you would like with it. They very first time I saw one I must have messed around with it for about 15-20 minutes in a bestbuy while everyone was waiting to try out the 24" macs lol. I guess people don't really get excited about reading anymore, at least it seems that way where I live. Just keep in mind that the display on the new sony prs-505 is slightly better in quality to the prs-500.
As far as the ebooks go, if you like to read older literature, you can download until your heart's content from the
Project Gutenberg website or the
ManyBooks website. They both offer free e-books and
ManyBooks even allows you do download the books in your choice of one of many different file formats so that it is ready to be transfered to your reading device of choice without needing any conversion.
What ever you choose just make sure that it allows itself to "disappear" and lets you focus on the main reason why you have such a device, and that is the books themselves. One of the main reasons that I never even thought of ebooks as a good alternative to traditional dead-tree books was because I go not even stomach the thought of having to read a novel on my laptop or a PDA, but since my discovery of e-ink my opinion of them(ebooks) has changed completely.
Good Luck
