[Boston]

I own a Kindle and it is an ugly duckling compared to the Sony; however, it is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

I carry mine around in my handbag with no problems. If it were truly that big/clunky, I would've returned it an a heartbeat.

The page turn keys will take some getting used to; however, I now like the large placement and how I can reach them with one finger no matter how I am holding it. Once I got used to it, I actually prefer it from an ergonomic perspective.

You can annotate text and there is a built-in dictionaty on the Kindle but not the 505 (doesn't matter to me but might to some).

The Kindle does NOT support secure pdfs and you can't convert them with the simple scripts. This is a factor if you want to borrow from an eLibrary that doesn't offer mobi. (That being said, for other conversions, the hard part about the scripts is installing/learning to use and you will find a lot of help here...after that its really easy).

I give the nod to Amazon customer support. Hopefully you won't need but I did recently and although they were able to walk me through a fix, they assured me that if it didn't fix the problem, a new Kindle would be on its way.

I REALLY like the Sony form factor...but its still not enough for me to give up whispernet and Amazon content/pricing advantages of the Kindle.

If ergonomics is your primary concern, why not try the Kindle for 30 days and see if its really a problem? You can always return it.