YO yourself, formerroadie, welcome to MR!
Yee-haw, the 600 sounds hot! I'm going to be pretty tempted myself, even though I've been very happy with my Kindle. In fact, when I was gushing about the 600 a couple days ago to my wife, she asked "what's wrong with the one you have?". Didn't have an answer for that, other than "it's a year old"!
What are you getting your PhD in? What's your dissertation topic?