>>there are a few options with encoding, quite apart from lossless, but they would only earn you a token few more megs, maybe enough to get 20 - 50 more songs on.

This is a much debated topic in the past.
A 1:10min song Compressed using lossless is 11.5Mb and the same song at 320kbps the highest resolution Mp3 is 3.6Mb.
If you can tell the difference walking around listening through those awful ipod buds I will take you dolby labs and force them to give you a job. I doubt you can tell the difference even at 192kbps, but don't go any lower than that, and make sure you use Vbr, because on a nano every bit counts

Was that for a 1:10min song? I got that figure by converting a 1:10min song from CD. So I don't think I'm wrong.
What resolution AAC are you using? you can hear the difference at low bit rates. If you haven't changed the settings on Itunes it is set to 128 by default I think, which is really low and pointless.

//Was that for a 1:10min song?//

no the average song length would be around 3 minutes.

The file size I referenced in my first post was for a 1:10min song I was using it as a reference.
which is why I asked.
What's AAA

ir reduces the sound quality noticeably, I compared it with lossless on a couple of albums. The sound has less air and less of a background. This is especially true for badly recorded stuff that already sounds thin.

...yes, thank you, I am now better informed.

I asked how many songs it could hold uncompressed and the sales assistant said that. I went back the next day and the owner told me he couldn't swap it cause I'd opened the packet (and charged it). I actually was looking to buy a new phone and got sidetracked, so I didn't do any homework.... my fault... but that guy could have just said "for $100 more you gent get 30G of storage capacity". It's a parallel import place on Queenstreet, good prices, average service.