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Well they are completely right to complain about this: "they couldn't scribble notes in the margins, easily highlight passages".

You can do that with the products from IREX which, BTW, also happen to be much more open than the Kindle (no DRM bullshit, based on Linux, you can install new/better applications, etc.).

Disclaimer: I don't work for IREX, I'm only an happy owner of an iLiad.

Have you looked into an IREX?

I would buy one in a heartbeat if it were about half its going price. I haven't used one, but every credible review I've seen is favorable for the usage you describe. Simply create a plain "graph paper" document (or something like that AmPad combination note/graph paper I can no longer find), take notes on new copies of it until the battery dies, and transfer notes off of it via USB. Downside is it's B&W, but so are hand-written notes for most of us who can't be bothered with carrying multiple pens most of the time.

- T

The IREX Digital Reader is likely the closest thing right now:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000

But generally speaking it seems like the devices just aren't quite there yet. I'm betting it's a few generations until we get to the really good stuff.

Early "smartphones" sucked too, and these days they are genuinely useful. :)

Also check out the E-book Reader Matrix, seems to be updated fairly often:
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix

A sidenote on the Kindle: Available in Finland: Yes. Books available in Finnish: No. Same goes for 3G wireless... If the local press is to be believed anyway. I'm going for a more open device, thank you very much...

An e-reader with a well-done touch-pen interface that allowed actually writing in the margins, saving the notes externally, keeping multiple note layers, adding cross references

What you're looking for is the iRex iLiad.

Until we get that, I have no interest in a Kindle.

Me either; I'm very happy with my iliad reader

yuppie scum with a penchant for nasty white plastic devices rather than yuppie scum who prefer the more expensive but far more desireable, open, drm-free, multiformat iliad reader.

Check out the iLead ebook reader. Expensive, but exactly fits what you're asking for. I'm saving up for one myself.

Don't forget about the fact that, with the iLiad/DR1000S, you can annotate/write/underline/etc. in/on PDFs with a stylus (although I found the supplied stylus fairly imprecise, you can replace that by another pen, like the Cross Executive (Capless) pen); something I find very useful while studying/reading. That said, the iLiad probably does lack something by way of user-friendliness, (compared to the Kindle) and is more expensive (although, if you don't care about WiFi, getting the Book Edition will lower the price significantly), but at least you can properly read (that is, with highlighting/underlining 'support') PDFs on it, as The KindleDX currently does not support bookmarking/highlighting in PDFs, only in their own DRM-able (although the DRM is removed fairly easily) Mobipocket-derived format.
Furthermore, they seem to be uninterested in supporting ePub on the Kindle (which probably has something to do with the fact that people could then go elsewhere to get DRMed content, rather than being forced to buy all their DRMed content at Amazon). Also, the Kindles do not support folders, so whether you have 40 files or 4000, you'll have to scroll through the lot alphabetically to get to whatever title you're looking for. Wonderful, that.
Finally, considering the total storage is only 3.2GB for the KindleDX with no expansion slot, having many scanned PDFs (with filesizes of 50MB+) is not an option either. (the iLiad supports CF cards up to 32GB.)

Having said that, there number of titles on offer as ebooks by textbook publishers is still very limited, so trusting that Amazon will make sure all course materials necessary in every university that participates in this pilot project would be a fairly gullible thing to do, which means that, if you have to buy the DX yourself, you have to factor in the facts that 1. you won't be able to resell books, and 2. you will probably still have to buy books in hardback, at the "normal" prices (supposedly the ebook texts will be slightly cheaper, but still very expensive.
On a sidenote, quite a few titles can be found on the darknet already, and most of the titles that are available "for free" are offered as PDFs, or HTML ebooks (which can be converted), so a big screen (like the KindleDX, the iLiad and the DR1000 have) is very handy when it comes to reading those fixed-size, non-reflowable ebooks.
The Kindle DX at least has the size going for it (it's bigger than the iLiad, but smaller than the DR1000, although the latter (still?) offers a fairly bad battery life), but I still wouldn't want it, simply because the fact that you aren't able to highlight anything on it, unless you buy from Amazon.

You seem to be under the impression that ebook-readers are all a subset of netbooks. They're not.

The thing that attracts people to ebook-readers is that you can read them just about anywhere. Find me a reasonably priced lcd/oled screen that you can read outside with the sun beating down on it.

Second is portability. An ebook-reader the size of a paper back is fine. A portable computer that size isn't really unless we're talking cellphone or pda. Netbooks indicates a keyboard, and I'm yet to find a keyboard in the netbook range that I am able to touch type on - my fingers are quite simply too big (comes with being 194 cm/6'4"). And if I'm getting something with a useless keyboard, why even bother with the keyboard?

Now, if my netbook is stolen somewhere, I now have to worry about my banking information, budget, private information etc being in someone elses hands. If my ebook-reader is stolen, I now have to download the books to a different reader.

Also, if you add in a touch screen interface like in the iRex DR 1000S you get an easy way to annotate the books/documents you're reading. While it's entirely possible to get that into a netbook, I'm yet to see anyone market a netbook tablet.

Will the two converge at one point? Perhaps. But for now I would rather have a good ebook-reader than a great netbook.

Am I the only person left on earth that like and often prefers to read things printed on dead trees?

Hardly.

I mean, yes, for a living, I stare at a computer all day. I read on it all day, BUT, I often take things that are important, that I want to remember and quickly refer to and print them off. I wouldn't be interested in a kindle, I like to read real books, ones that I can dogear and whatever.

0. eInk is not at all comparable to TFTs/LCDs/CRTs. It's a stable image, with contrast approaching normal printed text even now.
1. You can bookmark on kindles (and other readers) as well.
2. You can even make 1 file per 'printed bit of information', and still keep it organized (in 'file folders' etc)
3. Sure, currently the opening times aren't in real time yet, but in a 3rd gen or later device i imagine they'll be fast enough to be at least as quick as first having to find a piece of paper in a humongous stack (say, 50 printed research papers of 30-40p each).

I find that when I have things I"ve printed off, I often doodle on the pages and mark or highlight things.

Have a look at, say, the DR1000, or the coming PlasticLogic reader. at least the iRex device has a wacom pen that allows you to scribble in pdfs/image files.

I find that like when I was taking notes in school, I can picture in my head the exact page with doodles and all on what I'm trying to look up or remember.

You realise that with very little extra effort you'd be able to attach tags or whatnot to bookmarked passages, or have the reading program spit out all bookmarked/underlined/marked passages into a different file that links back to the main file, etc.?

I can't seem to do the same thing with a computer screen.

Which is why eReaders aren't pc screens without tablet functionality built in (although those touchscreen PCs as displayed by Jeff Han, or in the latest James Bond film or Knight Rider (2008) might allow you to do similar things).

That and for a newspaper, and granted these days I only get the Sunday paper, but, I like it for the coupons I can clip. I like to take out the store ads for BB and other places, take them with me when I go shopping.

So, advertising will change. Shops will have to in order to survive. Just Be Patient.

And frankly, how the hell are you supposed to start the charcoal in the 'chimney' starter without newspaper?

With something else?

Nah, you must be just ignorant. The Kindle is not the only e-ink device out there: http://www.irextechnologies.com/node/186

Even their old model the iLiad, which I have, supports pdf files, but you must have missed that one.

Ah, well. I can dream, can't I?

You could also relieve your wallet of it's contents. The iRex 1000 is pretty close. Pretty spendy (and mostly limited to Windows) as well. Keep dreaming.

The iLiad Book Edition is a good choice. The hardware is nice and the firmware is open source. It's also very expensive.

You could also look at the BeBook. It uses the same 6" panel as everyone else, has excellent wide and open format support and the firmware is open source. It's also sold under many other names, Hanlin V3 being the most common.

I've bought a BeBook. It should last me long enough that a better and probably cheaper generation of devices will come out. There's no need to go for the top of the line models now, the technology is changing too fast.

If your primary motivation is reading not fiddling then don't bother with wireless and touch panels yet. They cut the battery life from several weeks to a few days on every model that has them.

Will this new technology make the iRex Iliad more affordable?
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad
Currently this cool reader is basically eInk over a Wacom tablet, and costs >$7C
I still want one, though.

It seems to me that this would be where eBooks would shine. Add a stylus to the reader and now all of your annotations, bookmarks, etc can be indexed and easily searchable. Add to this the obvious weight advantage and eBook texts start looking pretty good.

So like the iRex then? http://www.irextechnologies.com/

Oh really?

Minus the color, that sounds an awful lot like the iRex iLiad. If I had the money (it's expensive), I'd own it already. I don't read books that use color, so that's not a concern for me. But you'd better believe that I, a law student, make annotations in cases that are available for free online in PDF form already.

Except I have to pay $130 for the bundle of cases in each class. And printing at my school is $.14/p, so it's not economically feasible to print each case out anyway.

I wish you luck in finding what you need.

I feel bad. I've been so conditioned by university text book prices that I no longer blink at books that cost that much. Of course, it means I don't buy books anymore.... but I don't blink.

I'm really waiting for the textbook publishers to get on the Ebook train so I can justify a 600$ ebook reader. Would make my life much easier.

As a nursing student, I mark up my textbooks a lot. I put lecture notes next to the diagrams, I highlight, I draw arrows, I add to the diagrams. I do the practice problems. I circle things.

The Iliad has a stylus-input screen so you can do just that.

when there are better options available

Like the irex iliad..

Open source; drm-free; supports non propietary formats including pdf, text, html, mobi, etc..

It's not perfect but it's a joy to use. Check out the thought that's gone into the (physical) user interface. A conveniently-placed flip-bar vaguely mimics the action of turning a page in a dead-tree book. Has a built-in wacom tablet so you can point, annotate. Has wifi allowing downloading of updates and books from their servers or from a share at some ip address you specify. Should you find some vast source of drm-free books (one example of which is project gutenberg) the hardware (which incidentally has a great look, feel and somewhat bizarrely, smell) may be your last book-related expense!

Disclaimer: I own one so am biased.

A better alternative is the iLiad Book Edition that is much more open (yes, it runs Linux and you can install your own programs) and has impressive specs (including optional wifi) and a very long battery life. It costs 500 â.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with iRex, I'm only a happy customer and a user afraid of what DRM can do to books.

Official page:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILiad

what you need is an iLiad

At the end of January I bought an Irex Iliad ebook reader (more expensive than the Kindle, but with a larger screen and with the ability to use a stylus). See Irex Iliad

I love it! I use it every day. I can read technical two-column pdfs on it for work, as well as tons of novels. You can plug in CF flash cards or USB drives, and if you attach it to your computer the internal memory appears as if it were another drive. I also use it to take notes in meetings or jot down things while working.

Seriously, it is one of those things that you find more and more uses for, once you have it.

Both suck because neither one is available outside the U.S.A., and both are locked up with DRM which is way to restrictive. A much better alternative is the iRex iLiad. http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

Link

Searching for "iliad" on Google won't work without "-homer".

Get an Iliad or CyBook. They use the same display technology, they can read standard web content, feeds, RSS, and other formats. They also run Linux.

In contrast to those companies, both Amazon and Sony are trying to control the eBook market rather than producing a universal reader.

If you want it for the reading experience, get the Sony.

If you want it so that everyone will think you're geeky, get the Kindle.

If you want it because you're truly geeky, get the Irex Iliad.

There's more information than you ever wanted to know about e-book hardware, software, formats, etc. at MobileRead

Why not consider the Iliad? It's an open (linux) platform, has wifi, a better screen than either of the others, and you can annotate books & make notes w/ the stylus. A bit pricier, tho:

http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

Yes, Kindle is evil, with its DRM, Amazon store tie-ins, and constant connection to Amazon.

But there are good e-book readers:

http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

http://www.bookeen.com/

They also support DRM'ed books, but they are very different devices: open, programmable, extensible, and they support open formats right on the device.

E-books have the potential of making books much more widely and cheaply accessible, if they don't get hijacked by companies like Amazon.

First, it's pretty clear that you think books are a fashion accessory. I don't. So there go all complaints about ugliness. Are you sure you are not confusing this device with a cellphone/smartphone, which is a fashion accessory?

Price. Someday, things like this will cost < $100, or even $8.95 in a blisterpack found in the grocery store checkout line, like calculators. But right now, they embody new engineering costs, scarce components, and costly ongoing wireless charges, just to name a few things. I remember the early 70's when a new calculator (with only the most basic functions!) could cost $200 or more. And $200 was a lot more money back then. Honestly I'd be surprised to find that Amazon isn't selling the first million of these at a loss.

"Pay Amazon everytime I blink." Here you are just wrong. You don't have to. You can move content in and out of it for free. You can even use their email translation service for free - you'll just receive the email at your PC, and then have to move the content via SD card or USB cable. You could fairly easily load this thing full of Project Gutenberg books, in text format, without sending a dime to Amazon. But Amazon has just done more to expand the selection and lower the price of current and popular ebooks than all the other ebook vendors combined. Did you really think this through?

'Content should outlast the device.' This is a very astute observation, and I totally agree. This is an unknown, and Amazon needs to clear it up by offerring 1) some kind of guaranteed support lifetime for the .AZW format and 2) a way to access that .AZW content without having a Kindle.

"Support more document formats" ... all the formats you named are supported. And a few more.

"Let me push stuff from my computer to my kindle directly" ... already in there. The USB cable comes with it. You can use SD cards too. Yes, even for the .AZW formatted stuff.

"give me the option to search both the content of books and my notes" ... already in the device. That's what the keyboard you dislike is for.

"Let me do annotations/notes/highlighting on pdfs" ... would need a touchscreen and pen. Might also require some form of payment to Adobe. Raising the price even higher. For now, have a look at the $700 iLiad.

I suggest that you haven't a) really looked at the features available on this thing, or b) really thought it all the way through. Given the state of the ebook reader market, and of publishing and copyright today, the Kindle is a pretty amazing device. It breaks new ground, and it brings e-reading to new levels of affordability, once you look past the $400 buy in price (which you can recoup if you buy enough content at below-hardback prices!).

You mentioned a few other features that aren't in there yet. Yup, you betcha. The whole ereader market is still at v1.0. Sure, there were products a few years ago, but frankly they were simply before their time. When ebook is a proven massmarket concept, then we'll see the economies of scale benefits. More companies will build and sell ebook readers, and there will be more choice in a market that has scaled up to where it can feasibly support such choices.

For now, this is a new category of hardware and media which still needs to prove itself. Kindle is the first device with enough media in the pipe to really have a chance of doing so!

his has one revolutionary part, that is not available anywhere else (to my knowledge) that is the display.

Major other readers don't have wifi or evdo.

Bullshit.

http://www.bookeen.com/ebook/ebook-reading-device.aspx

http://www.irextechnologies.com/

Both of those run Linux and are programmable! They can download and render PDF, blogs, and HTML on their own, free.

You have to download content to your computer and transfer it to your reader. You can do the same thing with kindle for free.

It's not clear that the Kindle can even do that; does it even read standard formats without a separate "conversion step"?

The Kindle seems like a giant step backwards.

The Irex Iliad has the same screen technology, bigger screen, views txt, pdf and mobipocket (relatively user-friendly DRM), can view PDF without DRM, and has more input - WIFI, direct connection to a PC, USB memory stick, CF, and SD. I've had one for over a year now... MP3 player built in....I use it almost daily. Oh... and it's powered by Linux.

http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

Check out fictionwise, mobipocket, or even the Gutenberg project for books... Baen has an extensive free library of books and multiple best seller science fiction books without DRM.

Wouldn't buy the Sony, not gonna buy the Kindle... Not interested in 'locked in' DRM from either, and the potential for 'interesting' spyware from either.

Amazon's about a year behind the power curve....
Look at Bookeen, or the Chinese...
An A-4 format (8 1/2 by 11) ebook PDF reader is on the horizon... That will be full magazine sized...

iRex has a linux based eInk reader.

A lot of the comments focus on LCD replacement. In my experience, unless they fix the speed of rewriting the screen, it won't happen. I own an iLiad Rex ebook reader (http://www.irextechnologies.com/) which uses B&W epaper and although the visual is excellent, you can tell it is not easy to do something as simple as turning a page. The whole page needs to be re-written every time, which takes about a second. For an e-reader that is relatively acceptable, but for any kind of regular LCD-type usage, that won't fly.

That said, I agree with a previous poster. I would pay up to 1K for an A4-size ebook reader. The iLiad screen is too small for most PDFs out there.

The iRex almost meets your specs: http://www.irextechnologies.com/

I've considered getting one but my budget is a bit lower than yours. That, and I haven't heard anything positive or negative about it from end users yet.

What about irex? They sell ones right now:

http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/wheretobuy

Yes, but it costs a bit more.

Rumors are flying around that Amazon is going to release their own e-ink device any day/week now. A version of it went through the FCC a while ago since it might have a wireless modem in it. It will probably be more expensive than the Sony, but might have the ability to download newspapers and magazines directly.

Bookeen is coming out with their own device any day now that's really similar to the Sony reader but will use different file formats. They all read RTF, TXT, etc... but if you want to buy a new book, it's likely to have DRM in the file. The DRM file format that the Sony uses is different from the DRM files that the Bookeen and Amazon Kindle will use.

The Iliad is bigger and can render letter size PDF files without the hassle of the smaller devices. It has wifi and a writable screen that you can take notes with... but it's supposed to be slower and more than twice as much money.

I want one really bad, but I'm waiting to see what Bookeen and Amazon finally release before I throw down my cash. Sure they're all kind of expensive, but you can load up with free classic books from Project Gutenberg and you'll save money in the long run (if you read a lot and are too lazy/busy to make trips to the library).

http://www.mobileread.com/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/kindle-edition-books-appear-on-amazon-reader-launch-imminent/
http://www.bookeen.com/
http://www.irextechnologies.com/

With an 8 GB memory stick.

Me : "Well, I have more than 20,000 titles here. I'd be happy to list them all for you. There's 'Het Geheimzinnige Eiland', by Jules Verne (#22580), 'Bread Overhead', by Fritz Reuter Leiber (#22579), ...

(hours and hours later...)

... Kennedy's Inaugural Address (#3), The Bill of Rights (#2), and the Declaration of Independence (#1)."

Agent : "Is that all?"

Me : "Yup! Oh, and 'The Catcher in the Rye'."

Agent : "One of those, are you? Take him in, boys!"

Or you could use a Sony Reader, too...

i just order an Iliad iRex and the next days coloured ePaper is announced ;-).

I think ePaper will do a huge jump ahead the next years. For me it is very practical. Usually i take 1kg of books per 3 days of vacation with me. With an eBook reader this will free up a lot of travel luggage.

Regards, Martin

There are two commercial black & white e-paper devices available to my knowledge. I happen to have one.
The iRex iLiad http://www.irextechnologies.com/ is the one I have, but Sony also makes one http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/itpd/read er/

The quality of these b&w displays is phenomenal. The difference with colour or b&w LCDs is striking, especially outside and in full sunlight.

One reason they're not so popular might be that E-Ink is prohibitely expensive; they have a monopoly on the digital ink liquid.
Also a lot of people tend to think colour is very important, neglecting the fact that 99.9% of their book library is monochrome.

I recommend e-paper. The device I've tried, the iRex iLiad, works in all well-lit environments. It even runs Linux.

Sadly its pretty useless for math classes.

For all my math/engineering classes, I bit the bullet and got a Tablet PC. It's really great for writing equations and drawing diagrams. Of course, my situation is a bit different because I also needed something viable for programming and general-purpose use (and thus decided against buying and hacking one of these instead), but it still works out well.

The only downside is that there's really no viable tablet software for Linux or Mac OS*, so I'm stuck with Windows for the foreseeable future. I think I'll be a lot happier when KDE/Windows comes out...

(*My laptop should be capable of running OS X, albeit in violation of the EULA. The support for the Wacom serial tablet is the only remaining concern about that.)

The iLiad might very well be what you're looking for. It meets most of your specifications.

Sony PRS : http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-S tart?ProductSKU=PRS500U2

Irex Iliad:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

I don't own a single ebook and I doubt I ever will because I've yet to see an ebook reader that was superior to an actual book.

I don't know that a device like this will ever really work as an ebook reader. The current batch that use Phillips' Electronic Paper technology seem more promising. It's just a lot easier to read for extended amounts of time than an LCD and LCD requires a lot more power.

I've only seen two of these readers on the market (the iRex Iliad and the Sony Librie which seems to be only available in Japan so far), but I'm sure more will follow and the prices will come down.