Again, thanks for all the responses and the helpful info. I've tried the Nook Touch and the Kindle(the version with the keyboard, but not the D-pad) and decided that touch interface would be better. I liked the Nook but the page navigation buttons seemed very, very stiff and badly made. I actually ventured to search for the Cybooks and Kobos but it simply seems too alien for this side of the world. They're even advertising some of them as Europe-only releases and stuff like that!
The Kindle 4 is available for around $125 in the grey market(the model with Special Offers) and the only official ones from Amazon are the K4 Graphite models which cost a total of around $220. Unbelievably ugly rates for shipping and customs. I haven't been able to get my hands on the Sony though. the US site is slashing prices, the UK and Aussie sites seem to have disproportionately high prices considering the exchange rates and Sony's India site doesn't list it , not even as future releases or coming soon. A mail to their customer support resulted in a very prompt reply that they didn't even have a time frame for the India release. So it'll be a gamble but I have a good feeling about it.
The T-1 is down to $129 and I think I'll go for it. I'll have to wait a while though. Shipping it to India from Sony, BestBuy or similar sites brings it up to a minimum of $248, which is the listed price for a
Nook Tablet. And this comes with a 30 day time frame(payment+clearing+delivery). I'll just wait until my friend gets back from the US and brings it with him.
Now all I need to do is dig around and find out if I can get the light+covers elsewhere to save a bit more on it. Even otherwise, I'm extremely happy about my hopefully-soon-to-be-e-reader. I guess I'll go with black. The red looks too pink-ish.
And I also found out that if the Sony reader is bought online through the Education Store, there's a discount of 10%! So the whole reader-light-adapter thingamajig combo comes to around $180
It's really helpful when you have access to a few real responses in comparison to stock reviews, et al. And admittedly, I overdid it on this one. And the whole non-availability in Asia issue is so irritating I could write a book on it. I understand how the rep systems work in these fora, so I probably can't spread rep as of yet, but really, thanks a ton.