gdgt

I've bought one simply for the light, as I already have a Touch, but I do read in some gloomy places! The light works very well, doesn't dazzle and is even. The higher res display is an improvement, although the original is perfectly acceptable. Page turning, browsing the library and so on are much faster than the Touch. Start-up is also faster, though as it's usually just in sleep mode this doesn't matter much.
I've had it 9 days now and it's locked up twice, forcing a restart. It also occasionally refuses to turn a page, then does 2 at once. These are the same problems that the touch has, and is not surprising given they are obviously using the same software. That's during somewhere around 20 hours reading, I'm happy enough with the battery life, but must point out that it is nowhere, not even within shouting distance, of the claimed 55!!! hours with the light on.
More like a quarter of that.
Loading books is very easy, not only through Kobo's desktop program, but also via Calibre or simple drag and drop through Windows Explorer for files you may already have.
All-in-all it's a good product, but they really should have fixed the bugs which have been around since the Touch launched a year ago.
Compared to the competition, well, it's a higher res than the Nook Glow and the light is much, much better,(there's a good video on Youtube showing the difference between the two), and in the UK, is available, unlike the very nice looking Paperwhite(though I read now that the Paperwhite light is a little uneven).
UPDATE: Battery life is definitely a quarter of the claimed life.