I recommend taking a look at the e-Slick, from Foxit.
e-Slick link It's about half the price of a Kindle, and they've got educational discounts if you're a teacher or student. It's got txt and pdf capability (and just about everything else can be MADE one or the other), support for SD cards . . . no wireless or subscription or DRM capability though, but I don't want any of that. I'm very against DRM on the whole. If you buy something, you shouldn't get it hobbled as if you were already assumed to be a criminal. So you probably won't be able to use it with some purchased books, like anything from Amazon, but for fanfic and anything from Project Gutenberg, or other free pdfs and stuff out there, you'd be great. The e-Slick doesn't do text-to-speech, but it lets you listen to your music while you read, with a headphone plugin and mp3 capability. So it would also let you do audiobooks that way.
Anyway, I did some research recently on e-book readers. Wikipedia's list has about 10 total, though some are found only in other countries. You can see the specs, what they offer, how much they cost, etc. I know if I ever get one, it'll be an e-Slick, 'cause that suits me best.
