I have a kindle, and I love it! Two friends of mine are avid readers, and after they got theirs and went on and on about how great it was, I got one. The great thing about it is that you've got all your books in one place. I subscribe to a couple of newspapers in kindle format (which costs a few $$ a month), and they download automatically every morning. If I get stuck somewhere like in a waiting room, I can go back to whatever I was reading. It comes with a dictionary, and you can look up words on the fly. You can access Wikepedia on the fly. You can download book samples (from Amazon) for free. And of course, you have the Amazon book site available all the time - it's supposed to make it easy to buy more books from Amazon. Buy one and it's downloaded in a few seconds. The wireless connection is free.

I'd say the only downside is that not all books are available in kindle format, and you can't share your kindle books with others. The kindle forum has a lot of suggestions on how to email the publisher and ask them to get with the program and publish a kindle version. And the kindle is not a color device, so books that depend on color photos wouldn't be worth it.

Knotted:
- Is it heavy? Would you imagine it'd be uncomfortable to hold on a bus ride?
It's not heavy. It's very comfortable to hold. For me it's easier than holding a book. It comes with a cover that you can hold like a book, or fold it back out of the way. At first it doesn't seem like there's any way to hold it without accidentally hitting the page-turn buttons, but that gets resolved with a little practice.

- Is it true that you can change font size on the fly?
Yes.

- How sturdy is it? (would it survive being tossed in a backpack?)
I'd say so. The cover has an elastic strap that holds it closed. The cover pretty solid, it's made of stiff material.

Here's the link to the forum, lots of good information there.
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons...sin=B000FI73MA