I’m a sucker for new tech, I freely admit. But I also have a hard time letting go of something I once paid cold cash for. A little over two years ago, I purchased a 20-gig 4th-gen iPod for my (then) fiancee’s birthday. It lasted about a year before the battery died out completely. Rather than send it in for Apple’s $60 replacement battery service, I purchased a shiny new 5.5-gen iPod. It allowed me to accomplish the birthday present thing (again), and in my mind, $250 spent on a 30-gig new ipod with a warranty was WAY better than $60 on a battery for an ipod that had been behaving wonky for some time anyway (more on that in a bit).

I never threw away the old iPod. I stuffed it in a drawer, as I have done with so many other bits of tech over the years. And there it has languished for over a year. I occasionally ran across it while looking for something else, and I kept telling myself I would one day fix it or get rid of it, or something.

I finally got around to being motivated enough to look for a replacement battery. Imagine my surprise. A company called Laptops for Less sells replacement battery kits for several iPod and iPod Nano models. The kits include instructions, a 4-way screwdriver tool, and the battery, all for a reasonable price. In my case, a 4th-gen battery was $15.95 plus shipping, bringing my total up to about $22. Not too shabby. I’m not endorsing this specific retailer, though I had no problems at all with my order. I’m just pointing out how simple it was to find what I needed at a surprisingly low price.

Once I got the padded envelope with the blister-pack kit inside, I set to work. I followed the instructions exactly, and although a very minor scratch at the seam where the plastic meets the metal back was unavoidable, it went pretty smoothly. Again, following the instructions. I very nearly tore off a ribbon cable at one point because I misunderstood something, and that would have sucked.

Batteries in iPods (gens 1-4) were plugged in, rather than soldered. This made removal and installation a breeze. Apparently the iPod Video (a.k.a. 5th-gen and 5.5-gen) is not only harder to open, but also has the battery soldered in for that extra kick in the ass. Replacing it might be better through Apple at this point, as not many people have the soldering skills necessary to not fry or otherwise destroy the delicate connections.

Total work time, from start to finish was about 10 minutes.

EDIT: Regarding the aforementioned ‘wonkiness’. The iPod wasn’t syncing, was showing disk errors, and would freeze up. Replacing the battery and performing a complete restore seems to have solved all the problems. Huzzah!