The dirty little secret about I-pods is that the L ion battery it runs on is sealed inside and has a limited number of recharge cycles and battery life---The deterioration starts to show in less battery life between recharges and consumers find out in the first year of ownership.An MP3 player such as this
http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/ifp-380t.asp
gets 24 hrs of battery life from a single AA battery and is much more resilient when it comes to being bounced around.The I-Pods are nice,I like them but they're not practical enough for me,when an I=Pod's battery tanks,all you're left with a is an expensive paper weight with a well known logo.PDA ? I wouldn't take an HP on the trail or a Palm device.Tough to beat a resonable priced dedicated MP3 player with no internal moving parts and superior battery life....