My trusty old iPod is finally dying on me... battery doesn't even last through a flight to San Francisco any more!

I'm not a huge fan of carrying multiple devices - if I had my way I'd just stick music onto the 4GB microSDHD card in my T-Mo Shadow but the non-standard speaker connection (the phone headset isn't really hi-fi!) and the battery life mean I probably won't want to do that with a full day of travel.

So, the top 2 tiny music players are the iPod Nano and the Zune Flash. Both are 8gb, about the same size and match on a bunch of features (the iPod screen is a bit bigger, the Zune has an FM tuner etc)

iPod means I'm stuck installing iTunes which is a horrible piece of software (I like it on the Mac, but on the PC it just doesn't play well) vs the Zune which has a great desktop client from what folks tell me.

I have iPod accessories (car adapter, home stereo adapter with remote control) but we don't use them that often these days (Satellite radio and a 6 CD stacker in-dash in the car, and Logitech Squeezebox streaming music at home), I don't buy DRM music so iTunes Music Store and MS Marketplace are not really going to be much influence.

Guess I'll have to see which fits the hand better and make a choice. Of check out what Creative and others have