I manage to find a way to survive for those 15-20 min a couple of times a day. Its a small tradeoff for the weight saved not lugging books around.

Here is my experience.

I'm a very slow reader. I also have a right eye issue that means all reading is done via the left eye only.

The kindle allows me to increase the font size to a point where I turn the page quickly enough to not get distracted and have to reread things and also to a level that I can comfortably see based on how my eyes are feeling at the time, which does vary.

For these reasons, for me, nothing will beat my kindle. These are things I can not control in a real paper book.

Plus I love the fact that I can have my books on my droid, on my work laptop, on my home computer, on the kindle, etc. So I can read where ever I happen to be with what ever I happen to have. That said, I find the kindle non-backlit screen better than an actively lit screen. The kindle does read like a real book.

Glad to help! ;)

It's great. I can increase the print if need be and page turning is very quick, no real lag time.

As for reading at the beach or poolside, I felt like a commercial for Kindle while at the beach in San Diego. I was sitting there reading my Kindle and several people asked me about glare, shade, etc. and there is not problem in any of those areas. One guy showed me his iPad and couldn't get it in the right position to read without glare, even while wearing sun glasses.
I had no problems.

Now.......the only problem with any electronic anything, is going to the beach, the sand, and lying by the pool, well either dropping it or it getting stolen. Although I always travel with my Kindle and will take it with me to both places if I am into a particularly good book, I do keep in my suitcase (on trips when I KNOW I am going poolside or the beach) a "beach" paperback, something I can read and toss when I finish.

To address the OP's question, lots of others already answered the iPad-at-the-beach question: it's nearly impossible to read, and it overheats and shuts down.

An alternative to shelling out big bucks for a Kindle is to look at one of the cheap-o readers out there. I bought a Cool-ER (now bankrupt) for a fraction of the Kindle price. If it were to be my only reading device, I would have been disappointed. But as a beach-and-sunlight adjunct to the iPad it's just fine. Nearly all readers use the same e-ink display and offer a similar range of features: font sizes, bookmarks, etc. The cheap ones have a horrible UI and won't sync over the air, but for loading up a dozen books and some magazines before a trip they're great. Mine weighs about 1/4 as the iPad and will run for weeks without a charge.

Best Buy sells a Sony for less than $100, and you can find others on eBay for about half of that. I think it's a good alternative to schlepping books or struggling with the iPad. As a bonus if something happens to it, it's only 50 bucks.

Reader, I bought one
 

Thanks for all the advice. I caved & got a Kindle. The abundance of feedback combined with cool same-day local delivery from Amazon did me in. Totally see why folks are so passionate about it - it really is a wonderful, specialized device, lightweight & easy on the eyes.

However, it is Yet! Another! Device! My carry-on for recent work trip contained laptop, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Kindle, plus a couple Moleskines & magazines. For the sunny vacation mentioned in original post, intent is to get away from all this stuff, so I think I will just take the Kindle. And the iPad. Well, & maybe the iPhone. :(