I've been working on a meter page, but hadn't finished.

Here's the best choice I've been able to find:
Milwaukee Instruments PH55 Waterproof Ph Dual Level LCD Tester
Milwaukee Instruments, Inc. pH 55 Specifications (mfg page)
and
Atlas Scientific pH Calibration Solution Kit 4, 7, and 10 - 4 Oz Bottles
That's a fairly new meter on Amazon, for a really, really good price. Stay away from the Hanna Instruments -- I bought a boatload of those years ago for cheep, and they were cheep, cheep, cheep!

I would strongly recommend reading the manual before you buy -- testing with phenol red drops is pretty goof proof (unless you have problems with color perception). Testing with pH meters is NOT goof proof. Even a $2,000 lab meter that's capable of accuracy to 0.001 pH units can and WILL read ANY weird value under the sun, if it's not calibrated properly.

Here are the basics:
+ pH meters break when you drop them -- this is a characteristic, not a defect!
(They have super fragile glass bulbs on the wet end, unless you get some REALLY expensive industrial electrodes.)

+ pH meter sensors must NOT be allowed to dry out.
(Sometimes, you can restore them. Often, you have to trash the electrode, which means the entire unit, with an inexpensive meter like this)

+ pH meters MUST be calibrated regularly! Do NOT order a meter without calibration solutions!
(You might as well try to measure pH with a ruler -- you'd be about as accurate.)

In reading through some of the negative reviews on various meters, I noticed that frequently the complaints were from people who never understood what they were buying, and never bothered to learn. There are bad cheap meters out there (Hanna) and bad expensive ones. But even GOOD meters will NOT work, if you don't learn to use them.

They are not a 'dip, read, forget' tool. The one above appears to be about as easy as they come. It's not difficult or time consuming, if you just treat the meter right. If you do get one, please let me know how it works for you. I'm planning to get one shortly, but it's hard for me to evaluate things like that through a pool owner's eyes.