looking online, I can "hack" it to get rid of the ads. One of the main reasons I wanted it was for my history classes because it seems like it would make reading and researching more convenient. I've been looking at some books for my next class, and so far, Kindle is more than paperback (example again
Amazon.com: 1776 (9780743226721): David McCullough: Books) on basically all of them.
So what I'm left with, is searching out free or cheap books, and "hacking" it. The biggest benefit I still see is being able to import my own documents. So $99 for a document reader? I'll probably just stick with my iPhone and computer (and hey, I can get a free kindle app for them!).