Which ipod is the most durable?

Without knowing why they failed it is hard to say. Those with solid state drives would be far more shock resistant.

Wow that’s tough to say. I went from 15g to 80g to the 160g classic. The only one that ever failed was the HD on the 15g & Apple replaced that with a refurb. My son is still using my 80g. I’m not hard on my gadgets, but I’ve found them very durable.

I dropped my old 30gig color screen iPod down a flieght of stairs and it was fine. What have you done to yours?

The Shuffle would be the most durable.

I’m gonna go with the shuffle for obvious reasons.

I have two ipods, one is the shuffle. It’s enough. Truth be told – I don’t need more than 100 songs at a time – and I don’t care what order they play. I also don’t need a tiny screen telling me what song it is. I listen to it and I know.

My G1 ipod is still chugging along.

If you insist on sticking with Apple, your only choice for tough is the limited, uncontrollable Shuffle. It has no fragile hard drive, no breakable screen, and is small/light enough to be dropped without worry.

That said, I have to disagree with @Zen_Again since I need the ability to see what I am doing, and more importantly, I need to be able to switch between techno/trance, metal, reggae, classic rock, or 99.9 FM. That takes at least 6 GB and a built-in FM tuner, so a Shuffle would never work for me. Hell, my Samsung YP-F1 is about the same size and it has a screen and the FM tuner, and it allows me to do a playlist on-the-fly.

Just out of curiosity, are there any iPods that can survive being slammed by a 95-pound steel impeller? My Sansa took such a shot and works fine. My ribs hurt for a bit though… I’d say the Sansa Fuze is tougher than any iPod I’ve seen.