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How soon do you want to buy?
RobertB is a good guy, and I like his approach, but my personal guess is sometime in Q1 2010 or even later for any Pixel Qi/Astak product.
There is a lot of really good stuff on the horizon, but I have watched this market for years and it will take a while to shake out at least six months and maybe a year. At that point, expect an entire new generation of new stuff just around the corner.
Here is the real question, IMHO: are you a serious reader? I believe that a several hundred dollar device at today's state-of-the-art is too expensive if you don't read much. However, if you are a heavy reader (like I am) then the technology is more than ready to go today. There will always be tradeoffs, but its good now. Furthermore, each new paper book that you buy while you delay buying a reader is money invested in an obsolete library.
So, if you are a serious reader I would say buy something now and begin building your electronic library. If you aren't happy with any of the current choices then go with something cheap so that you can afford to upgrade later. Something like the Etaco Jetbook or the ipod Touch.
If you are only a casual reader, the get an ipod touch or wait until an epaper device with multi-function capabilities is available (mp3 player plus book reader plus pda plus ...)
The two situations where I would definitely consider waiting are if you mainly read pdf's or if you need to annotate (two closely related needs). For pdf's you are pretty much limited to the DX (extra difficulties outside of US) and the IREX (costly). None of the e-ink devices or even the other units (ipod, Etaco) are that great about annotation yet.
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