Battery, Life.

Despite the number of chargers I haul around, it hadn't really occurred to me just how reliant I am on portable power until three of my most-used gadgets recently started to show that inevitable sign of lithium-based battery age: the inability to hold a charge for very long. The mobile phone and laptop are both due for upgrades this year (hel-LO, iPhone!), but I must admit I'm getting sentimental about the charge-challenged iPod.

It's not like this is my only iPod, either, or even the newest. Since we tend to update iPod: The Missing Manual at least once a year in an attempt to keep it fresh, tasty and timely, I have more than a few Pods around the house, all purchased for book-research purposes. No, the iPod in question here is an old 40-gigabyte iPod Photo model that I bought in the fall of 2004. It was the first iPod with a color screen and one of the last models to come with a huge amount of accessories (like a dock, AV cable, AC adapter, USB and FireWire cables) right in the box. Man, those where the days....

In addition to the office-job commute, This Old Pod has come along with me to London, Paris, Pensacola, Philadelphia, and Gettysburg (and holds photos from all of the above, plus iLingo's French lessons and a couple years worth of Samuel Pepys' diaries I got from Project Gutenberg). I use my video iPod and the sporty Nano when the need arises, but I fell into a habit of using iPod Photo as my daily walkabout companion. It hasn't died yet, but its battery life is noticeably shorter between trips to the wall charger.

I'm sure there are more than a few folks out there reading this who may be in a similar situation, and probably with their one-and-only iPod. So, what to do? I figure if I want to keep using my faithful gadget, I have two options: replace the battery or plant the Pod permanently in a set of speakers that keep it powered while it plays.

Battery life has always been a touchy issue for iPods, especially after that class-action legal scuffle and a harsh video rebuke from a certain set of the Neistat Brothers a few years back. But Apple now has a battery-replacement service in place and also made an effort to give more information about battery expectations on its Web site:

A properly maintained iPod battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity after 400 full charge and discharge cycles. You may choose to replace your battery when it no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs.

If you don't like Apple's price for battery replacement, plenty of places have their own iPod repair shops around the Web for battery upgrades and other parts 'n' service fixes.

If you're on the power-cell prowl, check out TechRestore's iPod Battery Upgrade, iPodResQ's iPod battery service and NuPower's high-capacity iPod replacement batteries that offer more charge than the standard-issue cell that came with the thing in the first place. In most cases, you have the option for replacing the battery yourself, or sending it in to the repair place if the thought of prying open your iPod and poking around its innards makes you squeamish.

The more I ponder it, though, the more I like the other option: retire the iPod from the road and give it a nice relaxing spot between a set of speakers. Hmm, Altec-Lansing's IM600 has some potential, as does JBL's line of creatively designed iPod products. (Good thing I got the taxes out of the way already.) I think ol' iPod Photo here has earned a permanent spot in the speaker dock. And come to think of it, I could use a nice bookshelf system to write blog posts by.

To quote Mr. Jobs, "One more thing...." If you have an iPod that's truly toast, you can take it to meet its maker (well, to one of Apple's retail stores anyway) to have it recycled properly in an environmentally conscious way for free -- and get a 10-percent discount on the purchase of a new iPod.