What about the screen shields? Do they help with glare when reading in sunlight, or is the screen good enough by itself?
I was given a Kobo as a present more than a year back and love it. Yes it is not as fancy as a Kindle (which were not being shipped to NZ then) but it takes epub books and anything that runs on adobe digital editions. I have enjoyed re-reading several classics from the 100 books it can preloaded with, which to my delight included the works of Austen and Conan Doyle. The local Wellington library also has books you can borrow (which vanish like the mist after a fortnight).
We are heading to Europe for 6 weeks later this year, which as any Kiwi will tell you is a major expedition due to our being situated a very long way away, and I have loaded up lots of reading to take with me. Usually I end up hauling paperbacks round the world and leaving them as I go, or if I can’t bear parting with them, paying excess baggage for the privilege of bring them home (and I do hate parting with books).
I am really looking forward to traveling with all my reading in this one little package. That and being able to bring home many many italian shoes in the space in the luggage the books would usually fill.
As always everyone’s mileage varies. I’m also a hard-core book addict and love my iPad as an ebook reader and have been reading a novel a day on it. It’s certainly a ‘real reading device’ and useable as a Kindle.
That said, it’s true that a lot of people don’t like backlit reading (I’m finding I prefer it). I’d recommend downloading an ebook from Project Gutenberg and reading it on your computer. If you find your eyes get tired/burn, then a backlit reader probably isn’t for you. On the other hand, if you find it doesn’t bother you, you might want to look into an iPad. They’re more expensive but more versatile.