I'm curious what your thoughts are. With DRM free titles from pragmatic programmers, etc. Im thinking about buying one. Only if the PDF support enables it to display tables properly. One portable device that enables me to carry around a ton of books for $500 doesnt sound like a bad idea to me.
I am excited about the idea of this, but I am still on the fence about making the plunge. $500 is really expensive, and there are very few technical books available directly through Amazon. Several publishers do have PDF now, but most seem to be avoiding a direct relationship. I am not sure if I can find a large enough % of the books I want to buy to justify the initial amount.
I think the only way that it would make sense to buy the kindle for the technical books is if the response time is lower than your threshold of expected wait time. Or, if you typically read technical books linearly from cover to cover.