My first Kindle was the K-3 3G purchased in October 2010. It has needed a couple of re-boots, but is otherwise going strong and I use it every day. We have a number of Kindles in our family – a Touch model, a Fire, another K-3 and a PaperWhite. All get pretty regular use and all are operating perfectly.
We still have our iPad 1 and that is fine as well. We have since purchased an iPad 3 and a Mini so there are not as many “my turn” arguments.
For basic e-mail, the original iPad works perfectly fine.