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It has replaced my Kindle 2 and then some. I've read a novel on it so far, plus half of an O'Reilly book, some book samples, and this morning I started another novel. This is in addition to all the reading I've done on the web and all the editing work I've done in Pages. (Pages is very "word processing lite" at this point. It needs some serious competition.)
Although the text was crisper on the Kindle, I found the contrast a struggle. This is not a problem on the iPad. Also, the time it took to turn a page with the Kindle drove me nuts. On the iPad, it's instant.
What I really thought I'd miss were the page-turn buttons, in part because they were right there on the edge; you could leave your thumb on one and just apply a little pressure whenever you needed. Plus, the "next page" button was located on both sides, allowing me to hold the Kindle in whichever hand I felt like. (The two "next page" buttons is why I chose the Kindle 2 over the DX, in fact.)
Yet I haven't found myself wishing I had a button to turn the page with yet. I can hold the iPad lower or higher in my hand than I did the Kindle, if I like, or turn it 90 degrees, and it's still easy to turn the page, regardless of what side of the screen my hand is on. I can even hold it from the bottom and still turn the pages with my thumb. (If I hold it from the bottom in portrait mode, I've found it's best to hold it upside-down; otherwise my thumb accidentally clicks the Home button.)
Regarding iBooks, when I saw the demos with the two-page view in landscape mode, I wasn't impressed. I don't need the print book experience to be mimicked. But now that I've used it and compared it to the Kindle app on the iPad, which doesn't go to two pages in landscape mode, I really prefer the two-page view; it makes for shorter lines. Now if only the iBooks store had half the selection Amazon does.... (I do appreciate that I was able to load my non-DRM ePubs into iBooks, though--like the O'Reilly book I'm reading. And I look forward to being able to share them on my iPhone come summer.)
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