I like my little e-ink Kindle Keyboard.
All I need to do on it is read, and it's small and handy.
I can read it out in the daylight without washing out the screen. It looks and acts like a piece of paper with printing on it. Very easy on the eyes. With the wireless off, the battery lasts for weeks.
I don't need it to take pictures, play games, surf the web (although it can, badly), or anything else.
It's just an electronic book, with room for hundreds of my favorites in it, and that's all I'm asking of it. I do wish it were ruggedized, but then neither are most tablets.
You can get free Kindle readers for almost any platform you can think of. Same for other readers, too.