If they wind up nder $50 I'll buy one, but the price of ebooks still has to drop considerably before I'll replace my library.

When e-books reach a certain share of the market for all books (and when you can't even buy some new releases in physical form at all), the Kindle will be nothing more than an e-book delivery system...and it will be free.

Unless Amazon is forced to switch to a generic e-book format which will work on any e-reader.

I'm going to miss actual pages...and bookshelves full of books...an that musty smell of an old bookstore...and the screaming of the trees.

I'll miss the same thing Conan. Ever since I was small I loved the sight of many books lining the wall, especially the old ones. Those bear hidden treasures. I love going to antique book stores and flipping open a musty old tome and finding an inscription to someone, along with the year, in some of those books you find the occasional picture, and I can't help but think about the people who sat down and read those books and what it meant to them.

I will miss the weight of a long novel in my hands, and the satisfying clap as I close the finished book.

But...I must admit, many's the day that I've wished I could carry an entire library in my bag.

At least during the remainder of our lifetimes, we should still be able to acquire old copies to line the walls. I'm sure people who once had hand written scrolls felt something similar when books began to become common. And when some science guy comes up with a way to beam books directly into our great grand kids cybernetic enhanced brains, some of them will miss the feel the weight of the kindle like devices. 'lol' Way of the world yes?

The proprietary readers (like Kindle and Nook) will continue to drop in price as tablet computers continue to take over the market space. I think that it is more likely that eReader devices will disappear altogether rather than become free. Single use devices have never lasted long in the market place.

Google Books is probably the best example of how eBooks will eventually have a standard format, furthering to invalidate the eReader device concept.

BTW, the Nook Color is essentially a tablet computer in eReader clothing. Buy one for $250, root it and you essentially have a $600 Galaxy Tab without the $30/month data fee to the telecom.

This is what I need out of an eReader: The ability to highlight text, annotate it, and store it in some kind of database for future search and retrieval.

Most of my reading now is nonfiction and I write all over my books. I actually have a huge problem in that I will remember a a passage/ fact I've read and have no frakking clue which book on my shelf contains it, much less *where* in the book it is. This is one of those "burning need" entrepenurial opportunuties; or it would be if I had any inkling of programming skill (or interest in programming).

Buy one for $250, root it

What does "root it" mean?

Wow -- this is amazing. It's difficult to keep up with all the new technological changes.

This is what I need out of an eReader: The ability to highlight text, annotate it, and store it in some kind of database for future search and retrieval.

I don't own a Kindle or Nook, and haven't used one yet, but I've read that you can use the Kindle to highlight/annotate information. This blogger says it's a "game changer".

It's also surprising to see writers publishing their work at the Kindle store: http://www.novelr.com/2011/02/27/rich-indie-writer

Folks are makin' bank.

"What does "root it" mean?"

Replace the operating system with a general-purpose one, like Windows CE or Linux.

Thanks, Dave. Is that easy to do?