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Dale - not at all. The 'open' devices that Netronix and Jinke are producing are heading rapidly in the right direction, both in features and price. They don't lock you in, don't try to do things that really aren't necessary and, because they're selling across worldwide markets, they are benefiting from evolving production with continuously reducing prices.
There are suddenly quite a few players in the market now, so the Kindle is far from being the only option - and more choices are going to arrive over the next 12 months or so. Certainly some will differentiate themselves with touch screens and so on, but the refresh rates on e-Ink make such interfaces a compromise at best. It seems reasonable that others will focus on the core functionality - just making it easy to read books - and reduce prices dramatically in the process.
Whatever happens, compare what a $500 'impulse purchase' gets you from Amazon, with the same money spent on something from Apple, Asus, Sony and others.
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