I can tell you that the N10 has a reversible shirt clip. So, it's "right-way-up" when you want it to be. Of course, the text will be up-side-down, but such is life.
To clarify about the "zip": it's in the headphones, not coming from the actual body of the player, right? For good or ill, I just tested it and got the exact same results (zip and backlight - backlight set to "on" not "auto" ... didn't test "auto").