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Cutting-edge, glitchy high-tech marketplace, suitable for (1) reading fanatics who will put up with almost anything to avoid carrying a backpack of books everywhere they go and (2) technophiles who are going to enjoy new gadgets no matter how glitchy they are.
Not so good for casual readers. Not a good replacement for comfortable reading of leatherbound hardcovers for an hour or two a couple of times a week, nor for replacing the trade paperback that lasts for a month. Good for people who are usually carrying two books with them, not so good for people who already limiting their reading to times & places where they have comfortable seating, good lighting, and quiet surroundings, unless they're well-off or retired enough that that's more than an hour a day.
In another 3-5 years, we should see useful-for-the-masses ebook readers.
Hard-to-break plastic screens. Folder support. Wi-fi, with bookmarks to a handful of free ebook sites. Color. Good ergonomics. A backup CD that will blank the drive (& memory card, if desired) and re-install the firmware. A useful instruction manual on the device itself. Compatibility with Windows, Mac & Linux. And so on.
In the meantime, the reading fanatics & technophiles get to work with troublesome devices as we try to sort out which features are important to us, which features would be important to not-us (I'm on the computer ~9hours/day as it is; wireless is unimportant to me), and which features sound good when described but aren't actually useful on a device.
And we get to try to shove that info down the throats of publishers of ebooks & makers of ebook readers. Bleh.
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