And so obviously these are very early impressions - but so far I'm impressed.

It's even smaller than you would think, very thin, very light and easily held in one hand. Buttons are fine, and page-turning a doddle with buttons on each side of the machine. The way the screen goes black for a (very) short time on page-turning takes some getting used to - but you soon do.

Resolution is excellent across all font sizes and types. With my 'readers' on, even the smallest font size is very readable.

Very straightforward Wireless and Amazon account set-up, it instantly downloaded all the books I'd pre-bought and recognised where I was up to on each one.

So far - I'm made up with it.

...is weight - I wouldn't trade my Kindle 2 for an iPad for this consideration alone (animated page turning not withstanding). Think of your wrists and eyes, and go for it!

But not expecting it for a couple of weeks. Battery life, price of the books and the fact that its a pretty reasonable price all told were the main factors. I suspect I'll have an iPad one day but the spec is not right at the moment - needs to accept external memory cards and be able to connect directly to peripherals for a start. And come down in price a bit.

I think the Kindle 3 is the first eBook reader that is really well sorted and will change reading in the way that iPods changed listening to music.

Stimpy, yes, the ipad page turning is very nice, but, as others have said, as a dedicated ebook reader (of course, the ipad can do so many other things), the Kindle has a number of overwhelming advantages. Paul, I like your first impressions &, for the reasons nick & Leedsboy have given, I think I'm going to get one.

What about a Kindle edition of The Word?

*adds to wishlist*

If you're a moderate to serious reader of books that are predominatly text, then the Kindle is the way to go. But it's pretty much a dedicated device that does one job.

Of course the iPad does lots of things and if you want a multi-purpose device, it's certainly worth considering. But, judging both platforms on reading alone, the e-ink screen is easier on the eyes over long periods, the battery lasts much longer, it's lighter and you can read it in bright sunlight.

My main issue with the Kindle is that it uses a proprietary file format. Will you be able to read this format in ten years' time? Can you read your eBooks using another device? Who knows?

To be honest, the 'tipping point' for me was that I've simply run out of space for more books.

After reading more about the Kindle, and playing around with the Kindle for PC software, I discovered that books in Kindle format do not have page numbers. This doesn't mean you can't find a specific place you want - there are lots of ways of doing that (book marks, "location numbers", etc) - but it is a big problem if, like me, you need to cite many of the things you read in a scholarly way. The saving grace here is that the Kindle will read things in pdf format, which does preserve page numbers, so I guess the thing to do is read anything scholarly in pdf and reserve the Kindle format for things you don't need to cite & just want to enjoy reading.