I have a 40 gb i pod and its real nice. Does well as a portable harddrive as well. Also evo skinz make cool covers for it. My gf got the pink swirly one. My friends make fun of me for it buts its pretty cool. (they are just jealous.) The ipod and the itunes work well for managing tunes. Money can be problem but the quality is nice.
i have a iriver ihp-120 with a a 20 gb harddrive. had it for a year now and i am very satisfied with it. before i bought it i checked out several models. one really negative thing with ipod is that when the built-in battery runs out it is cheaper to buy an new ipod than to change battery...atleast that applied a year ago. dunno about the new ones though....