my hardest packing decision is always which books to bring and sometimes i leave behind important clothing or other items in favor of a stack of books that, once i finish reading i tend to just "forget" places on purpose or give away.
so i bought a kindle. it's great. it doesn't hurt your eyes like a computer its thin and pretty durable and i have a case that keeps it pretty safe in my backpack. its yet to break but if it does i have a warrenty at ANY best buy i dont need the receipt they just look it up under my old phone number i give them my broke kindle and they give me a new one no questions asked. its gotten wet plenty of times and i toss it around and drop it lots (with and without the case) but it hasn't broken
i admit i haven't done *much* hardcore traveling since i got it but i bought it with that in mind and have done a few short cross country trips with it and its held up fine. ive dropped it, tossed it around, sat on it, gotten it wet, etc and so far no trouble even when im not using the case.
the best thing is people don't really seem interested in stealing it. ive had several phones stolen since i got it but nobodys ever bothered with the kindle.
they're cheap now. i think you can get one for $80. prolly cheaper on craigslist if youre in a big city like san fran or seattle. i payed 120 for mine or something like that i dont remember but it was worth it. ive bought a few ebooks on it from amazon but mostly i download them from isohunt or other sites for free and it works fine if you use a usb hookup to transfer the file from a pc.
highly recommended.
(i read a LOT)