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Has the Kindle become the new Kleenex and Google? Are the alternatives so insignificant that they aren't worth mentioning? I'm not talking about the Nook, I'm talking about a $50 Alturek e-reader that you can read text files and PDFs on. I think it's fantastic (but small).

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Depends on what you're after. The Kindle is backed up by Amazon's huge catalogue of books, and has a ridiculously easy purchasing mechanism (sometimes too easy...), along with almost fault-free syncing to the iPhone/iPad apps for those 10 spare minutes when I'm waiting for a bus and wanting something to read.

Don't know about the US, but certainly in the UK there's nothing that I've come across that comes even close to the Kindle for my usage patterns - and I'm prepared to pay that little bit extra for that level of usability.

.txt and .pdf are the absolute wrong formats for e-books. .pdf formatting is usually broken for eReaders, and .txt has no formatting whatsoever. Also, you'll really only ever get those formats if you're pirating, which usually entails transcription errors.

I used to pirate all my books, but it got to the point where I realized paying $6 for the pleasure of a properly-formatted, error-free book was a better deal than pirating and ripping them.

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