In my opinion, the ipad excels when you're reading anything more complex than a linear novel.

I used to own a DX, & I'm sure you can find posts of me praising it... until I got an ipad. The DX is just barely big enough to read arxiv pdfs, so I'm sure the kindle2 is much too small. More importantly, e-ink refresh rate is so slow it's a pain just switching books, or even flipping around a reference book. Then the kindle has a very bad music player & browser, & can't play video. I keep trying to tell people the ipad backlight is a complete non-issue because you can darken it http://imgur.com/h5NEi.jpg . The reflection is a bit of an issue, but you can definately work around it given the other advantages.