Lurk650
Headphoneus Supremus
i got a fifth gen, upon purchasing back in 2012 the salesguy suggests that i buy the extended warranty of another 1 year, because the battery tends to fail out.. i did.. and after 2 years, the battery did fail out, full charge only got me 3 hours max if not less.. sold it off for cheap and got me a cheap FiiO M3.. i dunno whether apple improved the battery issue for 6th gen... and im not sure whether the 4th gen also got this issue.. but the 5th definitely got battery issue. initially it was a superb dap, it got fast charging too (way earlier than OPPO claim it to be the 1st fast charging device)..
Have had this 4th Gen since I think 2013 or 2014 and they came out in 2010. I can't remember if this one is a refurb or not but it still holds its charge perfectly fine. I don't even think about charging it, mainly b/c it charges in the car, but still it holds up very well so far.
I was actually just looking at the M3 before you posted. $55 and shipped Amazon Prime. Might spend the money to try out and see if I like it.
The one negative to the iPod I thought of is the storage. Mine is a 32gb and I'm at about 28gb I believe. Esp with the ALAC files I've been putting on the last few months.