i've got a few friends with iPods who seem to spend their lives getting them fixed... i bought mine from amazon, it's this one, it's 256MB which is about 124 songs and was only £15. or you can get 512MB ones (250 songs) for £24. which IMHO is waaaaaay better than what you pay for an iPod. it uses batteries though, so i bought rechargeable ones and a charger (if you get them on amazon too they're really cheap), but i needed one anyway cos my mouse uses batteries too.

the downside is obv. that you can't have as many songs as on an iPod, so i just pick my favourites or make playlists to put on it and keep switching them round, and it doesn't bother me at all. but then i didn't have any music player at all beforehand, and just wanted some music for work & holiday, whereas you might want something that you can fit more of your music on...