iPod Classic replacement or alternative?

[Jiminee]

Lads
My wife had her iPod Classic lifted from her car a few months back and ever since we have not been able to find a replacement. Seems every shop we have tried sold out the day or week before we called and now Apple (or anyone else) does not make anything in that 100+GB range as they are pushing everyone into Cloud storage, which may be fine in New York but would suck balls in regional South Australia.
So, since Classics now go for $400-$500 on eBay (we thought we had one much cheaper but it seems the seller chose that week to take the money and run as in two days his rating went from 98% to 78% and he was shutdown………) does anyone have any suggestions for either an equivalent or a reliable source for a Classic?
She could probably get away with a 64GB Touch but with the larger screen that is not going to last as long with the environment in which it would get used – work car, gym etc.
Seems Sony makes something roughly equivalent but that is going to retail for $800 so that would clearly be a last resort. I can see why they are pushing everyone to go Cloud (monthly access fee and all) but the Classic was a brilliant bit of kit, just doing what it needed to do without having a bunch of unnecessary features.
Any help greatly appreciated.

[durbster]

The Sansa Clip+ is a brilliant little device and costs peanuts.
http://www.engadget.com/products/sandis ... /clipplus/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've had mine for about five years and although I use Spotify on my phone these days, both mine and the wife's Clip's still work fine. The clip broke on my wife's but that's been the only issue.

Battery life is so long that we usually forget that it needs charging at all so get caught out when it finally expires

You can stick a MicroSD card in there to expand storage and for the price, you could buy a bunch of them to get to 100Gb if you wanted and still be in credit.

The only downside is the little screen makes it a bit of a chore when you've got a lot of stuff to navigate through. I always just stuck it on shuffle though so it wasn't a problem for me.

[wobblysauce]

Wow, Sept 10th.. with not a sound gone from the stores... I love my 120gig and 160gig classics, wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Feel your pain.

Looking at some other sites there still going to be around for a little while in the used markets.
http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-audio/ipod+classic/k0c18625" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Could even get a smaller one and mod it to say 240gig..
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[DarrenM]

You can get 128Gb microSD cards now but they're about $130. One of those in a cheap player which will support it might be the cheapest option. No itunes support though.

This one is expensive but has 2 micro sd slots for up to 256Gb storage.
http://www.dwidigitalcameras.com.au/ast ... px?afid=17" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;