To extend on Jfish's post.

Soldiers in the US Army carry Ipod Touch, LOTS of them. They carry Iphones.

Are they perfect NO, not hardly; but they do pack lots of useful tools in a very small space.

Gun sites, GPS, translators... the things are darn near Tricorders....

Another option not mentioned would something more robust, like an OLPC. not ALOT of power, but a full out PC with a keyboard. Plus, can be powered from darn near anything- AC/DC Solar/Crank......

Selling on Ebay for 100.00 used.

example (not mine, no money etc)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OLPC-XO-1-Excell...=item19cf1f5e10

you can carry alot of files on a 1GB Micro Card....

How well will your GPS receiver function when the satellites fail to receive their regular maintenance? GPS is wonderful in a less than Doomsday situation but it, too, has it limitations. I'll put my money on the person with the better skills, not necessarily the one with the most toys. I also think cooperation, rather than tooth and fang competition, will be very significant. Not to say that competition won't exist, but I'll predict cooperative groups will prosper long term more often than the Ramboesque operations.

You make a good point, Fish. If it can get us info, communication, etc. . faster, then it's not a bad option to have. I can see something like an interactive first aid manual or mechanical guide being quite useful. We might not want to be dependant on technology but we shouldn't count it out either. If we can take advantage of it - go for it!

I live with video gamers and avid readers, so I have no doubt that electronics will be coming with us if we ever have to bug out. Like our cell phones, we can pack batteries, chargers, solar panels for it. Frankly, this mom will take the help in keeping everyone amused.

I think there is a tendency to worry way too much about TEOTWAWKI going on here.

I consider it to be a lot like the GPS versus map debate. The debate is long over. GPS is here to stay and short of some event that is extremely unlikely, it is going to stay here. It is a far better tool than typical map and compass. While it can fail, so can a map and compass, and in many ways a map and compass are more fragile.

Paper books printed on normal paper are pretty fragile. Try to read them in the rain, or with sweaty hands and see what happens. A lot like trying to use a typical paper map under similar conditions.

Personally, I print my maps out on regular 8.5X11 paper and put them in a gallon sized zip lock bag. I could spend a lot of money on laminating maps or using waterproof paper, or buying them that way, but a gallon sized zip lock bag works pretty well at protecting the map from both water and abrasion. If I need a bigger map, I can print it out 11X17. Folded over and trimmed 11X17 will fit quite nicely in a gallon sized bag.

The reality is that some kind of ereader is something you can store hundreds or even thousands of titles on. You just cannot carry that much with you in paper form.

I am not opposed to paper books, but I am transitioning to mostly ebooks these days, and they are all either Amazon or DRM free. I have decided Amazon is likely to be around a while, and there will always be something to read DRM free stuff with.

I have been burned by some of the more offensive DRM schemes and smaller sellers that use DRM that I just will not purchase from them anymore.

Incidentally, there are a large number of very readable free books for the Kindle platforms. Enough to keep me in reading material. Most are from unknown authors, but some are from best selling authors like Bob Mayer. I do have to sort thru a lot of stuff that is uninteresting and/or just plain bad stuff to find the good stuff.

I have been using the library's Kindle this week and now find it to be a pretty handy gadget. As long as one isn't using the device to the exclusion of other means, they definitely have a place. I must admit, that smart phones are pretty amazing.

I have way too many other things to buy before an e-reader or tab, but I am a supporter now.

The fragility of paper maps, or any paper goods for that matter depends upon the quality of paper and how they are handled. Some years ago, I realized I would be a set of quadrangle maps (for the northern Channel Islands) regularly for a good many years, so I "super prepped" them - cut them into uniform rectangles, coated them with waterproofing solution, and glued them together with Chartex cloth so that everything would fold uniformly. I used that map set regularly for nearly two decades with great success, also covering them with notes and locations. When I retired, they went into the park archives.

Sometime in the early 1990s, I began to use GPS. For an archeologist, GPS is the best invention since the wheel. Still, I like the backup that only a good old paper map can provide. Carrying both doesn't incur any significant weight or space penalty. Besides, you can shave off the margins of a paper map to use as an emergency fire starter. Try that with a GPS receiver.....

What about my old maps in the archives? I will be going out on a trip to Santa Rosa Island in June with another archaeologist and I inquired about getting my old map set from the archives and doing one more lap with them. No dice, but I can get a photocopy......

Sure. And you can replace it with a compass and map, which doesn't take much room, if you only need a local map. I don't think an eBook reader is strictly analogous. It's much, much smaller than the library of books it contains would be in paper form. A paper library is fine for shelter-in-place or if you have a cabin to bug-out to, but not if you have to carry it. By all means have paper versions of crucial documents and reference works. Beyond that, it's either eBook or nothing for travel.

(Pack a deck of cards, too. In a medium-term survival situation, an eBook reader has significant value purely for entertainment, but a deck of cards is hard to beat.)

There can also be software faults. I've recently been suffering from some very poor battery life. The reason is that the Kindle lets you search across all installed books. To support this it constructs an index of all the words in each book. Building the index takes a lot of electrical power. Normally it happens once when a new book is added. Sometimes the indexing process gets stuck, never succeeds in indexing the book, and runs forever. Then battery life drops from 2 months to a week or so. A fix is to delete the book, then reboot the Kindle.

Presumably it only happens if there is some kind of formatting issue with the offending book. I've only seen it with books that weren't bought from Amazon. (I've been buying eBooks for a decade or more, and have many that predate the Kindle.)

The point is, it can go wrong, and even if its working now, Amazon can update the software at any time, and the new software could have a new bug. Their system is not something you should trust your life to. It's not designed for that.

I think everyone agrees with this--you still need some paper based reference materials. But you can only carry a couple of paper books, and if you also carry an ereader you can have a hundred more books. You may or may not be able to access them.

Also, a dead battery can be addressed if you have several means of charging it. A broken ereader (either software or hardware) probably cannot be fixed. The same is might be true of a paper book that is soaking wet or that catches on fire accidentally.

I EDC the Nook color and it gets great battery life. I store several good survival texts, tons of bushcraft FAQ/s word docs important data (copies of birth certs, drivers license, sevral gigs of pic. Plus my regular entertainment library.

I've charged it from cig lighters, small portable solar charger (slow but it works).

Like someone said I wouldn't rely as the only source. Should back up with paper books. but for EDC it's pretty handy