I think a good question to Nikkormat would be how much do you want to spend?
I like the little jobs that take SD cards and often cost less then a tenner. Doesn't matter if you break them and they take aa bateries, so you don't need your pc to charge it.
Of course its not as nice to use as an ipod, but they still have a screen to select tracks with.
Just wish they would update them to take 4gb cards, but you cant have everything