Ipod Dead????

I have an ipod 2nd gen nano, black, 8GB, and at work today, it just stopped working, blank screen, tried to reset, nothing, plugged in to electrical oulet, nothing, plugged into both a windows and mac computers, nothing!

Is it dead? i have tried everythin on the apple website, i noticed the battery life aint been that good in the last couple of months, and i had reset it a few times! but nothing appears to work anymore.

and what makes it even worse, is that its 3weeks out of warranty!!!

any suggestions? i no i can send it to be repaired, but what are costs? and do they not just out weighed by the fact that a new one is more beneficial?

Im a little annoyed, as my ipod was what got me started on macs, i now have a macbook pro, is this gonna die 3 weeks out of warranty?

And if i have no choice for a new one any suggestions? new nano's look good, but i really fancy a tough, but a little pricey! and a iphone is just a no, with at least another 8 months left to run on exisitng contract!

Cheers in advance