I can't answer your questions about the Apple Store replacement/refurb policy since I possess no Apple products whatsoever, but check on the web and you'll find 4th gen iPod batteries for about £10. It's easy to do the replacement job yourself. Just make sure you get exactly the right one, since there are several variations.

and I think it might have the iPod equivalent of creaky knees.

If you think you're up to it, you can get a kit to carry out the battery change yourself from these guys:

https://ipoddoctor-batteries.co.uk/index.php?p=prod&cid=35&pid=85

Full instructions on how to do it here:

https://ipoddoctor-batteries.co.uk/media/products/85/4th%20Generation.pd...

For just over a tenner, that's pretty good, I reckon.

I bought my Ipod in July 2004. 30G (just before the 40G was introduced). It cost the bargain price of £399 but did come with a pouch, charger and firewire (remember them). About 2 years ago, I went to a shop off Tottenham Court Road in London called Micromend and for about £35, they put a new battery in which has a much longer running time than the original. Definitely worth getting a new battery for it but maybe not from an Apple shop itself.

I bought an 80GB classic last year, and despite swearing I would never watch a movie on it, I have watched the Godfathers 1 & 2 and the Scorsese Dylan and Stones movies in the last 4 weeks. I thought the tiny screen would not make for a great watching experience, but I was wrong.

is pretty simple. I've changed four, two for myself and two for friends. The quality of the battery does vary though, so it may be worth spending a bit more and ordering one from iPod doctor (address in post above) or send it to them and they will do it for you.
My old pod is a 40 gig 3rd gen which I keep for sentimental reasons and back-up purposes I had a 60 gig 5th gen which I sold and bought a 160 gig classic which was stolen and now have a 6 month old 160 gig classic which I love dearly. I would love an iPod touch but the capacity is far too small for me, so I'm waiting for the technology to catch up with my needs. (Think I'm gonna be waiting a while...)

Yes I've heard other people have had issues with them. To be fair I stood in the store and watched them change my battery so it never left my sight.

Mine's a 160gb one which I hoped up to as soon as it came out, replacing my old 60gb one. The current one is full at this stage and, despite the fact that they've got rid of the 160gb one from their range, does anyone know if apple ever plan to go for an even larger memory capacity? I'm sure I'm not alone amongst the "massive" in my desire for that?

I've been using my trusty ol' Creative Zen Xtra for about 4 years now - and the battery (self-replacable) has only just started to become flaky. A new battery was a tenner from Ebay..It uses a laptop hard disk as the main drive, which I upgraded from 40 to 60GB in seconds

It may get Apple users sniggering and head sratching - but it's been my musical nerve centre for the past 4 years - there's no Atrac, or DMCA restrictions - all pure MP3, which can be moved between the device and any PC.

I've made God knows how many mixes,playlists, comps for parties and blog entries using this little Creative cracker...

but my oldest one is about three years old. It looks awfully chunky and archaic. I have a touch but it doesn't hold enough songs and it's temperemental, so as beautiful as it is, I like my silver 80gb one I got late last year and that's the one I use all the time. 17,093 songs and counting.

Nokia N95 8 Gb the camera is on the phone! But It's great I know 8 gb isn't massive but it holds enough tunes and podcasts for commuting and deleting the odd podast to make space isn't big issue.
As it's on a contract when it had a wobble they mended it no questions asked. I upgraded the ear buds and it sounds great i can also stream tunes from it via a bluetooth gizmo attached to my stereo for slothful sofa listening. Nokia and Itunes aren't on speaking terms so I use Microsoft MP with no problem.
Oh and it takes pictures, surfs the web, edits word docs, coverts feet to metres, videos bands at gigs and makes phone calls.

Bought Feb 2005. Still works fine and I have it permanently hooked up to my music system for random play.

Replaced with a iPod Classic 160Gb. I think it was April 2008? Which is surprising if true as I always think of it as being only about five months old at most.

Customer services by any chance? And the shop assitants on the desks are actually called Geniuses for f***ing j***s on a tandom sticking a marketing degree down your ******g j****ye's sake. Huuuuh.....

I've just won an ipod nano which I get next week. Clearly all my anti ipod marketing bile will go out of the window along with my 4 year old creative zen, which still charges along without a glitch, as I wonder at the beauty of the nano listening to Nickleback and the Killers inbetween chewing off my sodding arm with rage.

One of the first ever i-pods which only works now as a back up drive.

The mutt "insisted" on butting in!

My 120GB ipod actually only has a capacity of 111GB. Is that common? It's my first so I don't know if that's just par for the course.

I've had it six months and am only halfway through filling it up so it doesn't matter just yet.

They are so cheap (for the value) it's scarcely believeable. Mine cost $330.00 Australian (that's about 150 of your English Pounds) brand new. My first DVD player (from China!) cost more than that.

At one stage I thought mine was busted. I found it on the kitchen counter with a huge gash on the screen making it unreadable. I'm not rolling in cash but I just thought "That's it! I have to get another one." It turned out to be nothing more than an unnoticed spray of pasta sauce that had hardened overnight.

As well as carrying 18,000 songs I'm using it to teach myself Russian. What a gadget.

It still works well enough but isn't big enough for all my stuff. I got given a 4gb Nano from work last autumn and I use that mostly. Works well and use for this months eMusic downloads, other favourite selections and podcasts.

I will go for a 120gb ipod though when funds allow - I miss not being able to take everything with me. But, ideally, would like a 160gb as I have started ripping at 320bps and could see the 120gb getting full quite quickly.

on ebay. Brand new.
That's where I got mine, still sealed in the box, all shiny and capacious!

Thanks to all for the hints, tips and anecdotes so far. One other reason I don't especially want a new one is because I've become irrationally attached to the bloody thing.

It's been to America and Australia and many points in between with me. It's MY iPod!

Carry on.

Creative Zen Touch, 20gb - 3 years, 5 months and still going strong.

I'd be gutted if it went, took me ages to fill and edit the information (we're talking chronological complete b-side collections etc). If the worst did happen, it would be another Zen, but with a much bigger capacity.

I got given mine as a works leaving present 2 and half years ago (well before the credit crunch.) I was given a 2gb nano which I then took to Curry's and spent 40 quid on upgrading to a 4gb nano. Then I got back home again and realised it still wasnt big enough so went back to Curry's, spent another 40 quid and got a 30gb video ipod which I still use and love to this day. Every day. No problems with it. I do expect it to conk out at some stage but for now it works just fine. I've a nice brand new pair of AKG K430's as headphones as well to replace the wonderful sounding, but ever fragile and far too easy to break, Sennheiser PX200's.

Greyscale screen, at least five years old and still going strong on its original battery! Though derided design-wise for the four buttons above the wheel it's never let me down. Nor as I've ever wanted it to play films or play games do I feel like changing it until it pushes up tin daisies.
Headphones though, now there's a different story...my partner who knows about money stuff told me accountants now class printers as 'consumables' - yes, like instant coffee or bic biros, rather than capital items. Headphones is surely the personal gadget equivalent. We use em up and wear em out.

Though I use an 80gb 5th gen I've still hung onto the old model for nostalgia. Amazingly unreliable it would crash at the drop of the hat but I did become quite skilled at re-setting it with one hand while still walking & carrying multiple bags of shopping. A skill everyone should have
I still remember the "ooh"s and "aah"s when I took it into work all those years ago & showed it to workmates who now no longer even blink any eye when I sit down to watch episodes of Lost on my lunch break

Changing the battery?? Pah! My two-year old 80gb 'pod fell of its perch a couple of months back - pronounced dead at the 'Genius' bar. I only went and changed the bloody hard drive!! Ten-minute job and Lazarus-like, it now works again.

I thought they all curled up their toes at 367 days old, just so that you'd have to buy a new one?

... but I use my phone more. Nokia N95 8GB - wi-fi means I can update all my subscriptions - RSS, podcasts etc - and still have room for enough music to get lost in.

We've never had it so good!

I bought my first one 6 years ago from Comet - 40Gb because that was as big as I could afford with the extended warranty. I was really glad I had taken that out - it failed a couple of times and went through their menders - when it failed fatally after 3 years, I got a replacement 60Gb : that was the smallest one that Comet had available and it was a fair chunk cheaper than the original. I took the extended warranty and in the last year it was at their menders 3 times. During the last visit it decided it would go and live out in the country at a lovely farm, too.

So I got a voucher again and I took out the extended warranty again, and I now have a full to overflowing 120Gb iPod, in silver.

I think I'm fairly careful with them, I don't throw them around, but I fly most weeks on business (in the UK, "national turbo-prop-setter"), and I think that might contribute to the short-ish life.

I've got a Zune as well : I bought that when the second iPod was showing signs of old age and I was really needing a chunk of portable music. It's OK - I use it mainly for podcasts and for music I have as MP3s. If the music is worth keeping, I add it to the ever-growing sprawl of my iTunes library.

I missed the specific question :
It depends on the repairers but in the several cases of successful repair, I have always got back my original case, with new innards as required

But not exactly sure how old. I bought it for a tenner from Cash Converters... It's only 2GB! Features the cream of my music collection. Not had it until recently aswell, I said for years I'd always use my phone as my MP3 player feeling to do otherwise was an affront to my CD's. Now I want a newer better model. Aah! I've been tainted & brainwashed by technology!