Reportedly a new, larger-screen Kindle is coming very soon, perhaps this week. It will be out in front of several other e-readers slated for release later this year or early next year. According to the NY Times:

Now the recession-ravaged newspaper and magazine industries are hoping for their own knight in shining digital armor, in the form of portable reading devices with big screens.

Unlike tiny mobile phones and devices like the Kindle that are made to display text from books, these new gadgets, with screens roughly the size of a standard sheet of paper, could present much of the editorial and advertising content of traditional periodicals in generally the same format as they appear in print. And they might be a way to get readers to pay for those periodicals — something they have been reluctant to do on the Web.

Such e-reading devices are due in the next year from a range of companies, including the News Corporation, the magazine publisher Hearst and Plastic Logic, a well-financed start-up company that expects to start making digital newspaper readers by the end of the year at a plant in Dresden, Germany.

There will be two eventual requirements for all these devices: color screens and IP-connectivity. The Kindle has the latter, from Sprint, though few people use Kindle as an Internet device. I would imagine that eventually these e-readers will operate like mobile phones: buy the device and a contract for ongoing Internet access. However the pricing, connectivity and any related subsidies have to be determined as these devices become more mainstream. The netbook with mobile contract is probably the model however. 

The Times article is largely about the question of whether or not these larger format digital e-book readers will save newspapers and magazines and whether the subscription model will work in this context. However, I've long been fascinated by these kinds of devices as on-the-go Internet access tools. Because of their larger screens, there would be no distinction between the ads that appear, say, in the NY Times online and in the publication on one of these readers. 

The single difference -- although the PC will catch up -- is the precise location targeting that will be available to these devices given their mobile nature. 

Price will be a big determinant of success. And people will be forced to decide: smartphone, netbook and/or e-reader? (This is also not-to-mention any data plan charges that might be associated with the new readers.) Some people will have all these devices and some will be forced to choose because of budget constraints -- making the mobile world a permanently fragmented place when it comes to devices and platforms.