I just bought a Kindle DX 2 (received it on Monday morning), and to be quite honest, it's absolutely incredible. The iPad is better for everything
except reading and battery life: a far superior UI, superior web browser, colour screen, and capable of much more.
The smaller Kindle and the bigger DX 2 are very good at one thing --- reading -- but it's so much better than an iPad at that one thing, I was willing to sacrifice all the other benefits of an iPad for a Kindle DX. I hope this means the general population understands that there's a place in the market for eInk screens, even if they're not capable of many things.
With regards to the Kindle:
- The brighter it is in your environment, the easier it is to read the screen. I read in lit rooms and outdoors more often than I read in the dark, so more often than not, the Kindle DX is more convenient.
- Screen reflections aren't a problem.
- Fingerprints aren't a problem.
- Battery only decreases with page turns, so at my pace, mine probably has a battery life of 1 month.
- The screen really does look like paper. Really.
You only begin to appreciate the eInk screen when you've used a Kindle/Nook/Sony eReader for a few hours.
I use mine to store and read scientific papers and manuals (around 50 PDFs so far) and some MS Word documents. The iPad's page-turning graphics are neat, but if you want to buy an eReader, I'd rather have a Kindle+iPhone than an iPad+iPhone.
Besides, for on-the-go internet, the iPhone still beats the iPad in terms of convenience.