Not to derail your post, but have you looked at other media players??
I had an Ipod for years and found it very usable. Recently I needed to replace it and started looking around to see what else there is available. What I found is that Ipod's are very limited in what a media player can do.
I ended up with the Cowon D2: It's small, less expensive, has a huge 50hr battery life (one of my biggest peaves with the Ipod was short battery life), sounds far better, can play back almost any media format (Ipod only plays MP3's), has an expansion slot for sd cards (so your memory is infinitely expandable or you can just record several different books on different cards to go, etc. I'm sure there are a plethora of things I'm forgetting. Bottom line is, I got a far better player for less money with the Cowon.
Check out this sight for other non-Ipod related items:
Anything But iPod - MP3 Player Reviews & News
There is a huge world of media players out there that Ipod isn't keeping up with. If you just want something very small, check out the Sansa Clip.
Brock
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