Considering how many people here seem to be using it for simple browsing and book reading, perhaps a better question is, is it a $500-900 value or would a lower price point make more sense considering the typical use-case?
The high point is the versatility. It makes a great eBook reader, but it also makes a great comic reader, a great web browser, a great YouTube watcher, a decent twitter client, a remote control for my home theatre, a game console, a Skype phone, an interactive map, a Scrabble board, an image editor, a newspaper, an RSS reader, the National Film Board of Canada's digital archives, an IM client, a way to stream video to anywhere in my home, an iPhone locator (MobileMe), a dictionary…
The point is, it's incredibly versatile, and it does a lot of things very well. On top of all that, it's light (but feels sturdy), it's small (but not too small), it can go a few days of casual usage without a charge (so I can plug it in whenever is convenient), and it's easy to use.
I paid $850 Canadian or so for the 32 GB 3G version, and other than the first day, when I was trying to get a hang on what to use it for and where it fits into my life, I've never wondered about the purchase. Using it to read news articles and RSS feeds, then switching it over to recipes so my girlfriend and I can make truffles before we curl up in bed and watch a movie on it, it's really a wonderful device. I could do all of that on my laptop, but it would be more cumbersome, take up more space on the counter, run out of battery faster, weigh more, etc.
