Wired's Roundup of current E-Readers and Tablets

Wired's Roundup on 10 E-Readers and Tablets You Can Get Right Now focuses on the consumer who wants only to read books on a device and if that's so, why pay $500 or more for it, as their reporter Dylan Tweney puts it.

 In fact, to get, on the iPad, the favored feature of being able to download books to the e-reader within a few seconds, just about wherever you happen to be be (the unique feature last year that propelled the Kindle device to the head of the e-reader pack), you'd have to pay $629 + $29 for a file transfer kit and $30/month for the over-the-air browsing and downloading that this year the Kindle, Sony, and nook all can do with their stores (although the Kindle can also slow-browse mobile-device-optimized versions of websites from almost anywhere).

  The iPad's iBookstore, in fact, is not selling books internationally until the end of the year.

Of the ten devices they've done reviews for, they say:

' Most of them are really only good for reading. But they're arguably much better for long bouts of reading, because their reflective, E Ink screens won't tire your eyes the way an LCD like the iPad's will.  And, with one or two exceptions, these e-readers are all much less expensive than the iPad. '

The e-readers compared include the EnTourage eDGe;  Archos 9 PC Tablet;  Sony Reader Daily Edition;  Coolreaders Cool-er;  Astak 6" EZ Reader;  IRex Digital Reader 1000S;  Barnes & Noble nook (B&N does not capitalize the 'n');  Amazon.com Kindle DX;  Apple iPhone 3GS;   and the Amazon.com 6" Kindle 2.

  The Roundup has a very brief summary of the factors for each and applies a number-of-stars type rating for the devices.  The Kindle DX is up there but is relatively pricy, and the highest rating in this article goes to the 6" $259 Kindle 2.  Its summary:

' The Kindle kicked off the e-reader craze, and it's still the one to beat.  Version 2.0 of the Kindle, released in early 2009, fixed most of the original version's flaws.  It's our top pick for an e-reader. '

  Again, this was focused on which would be the best fit for a consumer interested only in reading on a (carry-around) device.

  Thanks to Kindlezen for the Twitter alert.