Welcome, Dave!
I see you found your way to the enTourage forum here on MobileRead. You can use your PE with its original build for as long as it takes you to feel comfortable doing the upgrade. You can get apps from the Amazon Appstore without updating, and ebooks are no problem once you register with Adobe (for the DRM). You can download books to your netbook (from a number of sources) and transfer over (by USB connection, USB stick, microSD card or wireless LAN) or download direct to your PE.
If you haven't yet, you may want to read through Obsessed2's thread for new users:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=132878.
I hope you'll enjoy your Pocket eDGe as much as I have enjoyed mine!