Beautiful thing that it is, my wife's five-year-old iPod mini stopped working the other day—its first complaint since the day I gave it to her. Further, although battery would no longer accept or hold a charge, this veteran was in otherwise perfect working order.

What to do? Well, if you Google the words iPod mini battery, you will find dozens of companies with comparable products at comparable prices.

For a number of reasons—price ($22.49 including ground shipping), reputation for quality, support materials—I chose to go with the Newer Technology NuPower iPod mini 650mAh replacement battery. And, like their marketing says, sometimes Newer is better than new—this battery offers 62.5% more run time than the stock Apple 400mAh battery the iPod mini originally shipped with.

NewerTech's kit includes the required tools, simple illustrated instructions and there's a video tutorial available online.

Although this is a fairly straight forward procedure, if you're not a DIY kind of guy (or gal), then you can opt to have your new iPod battery professionally installed ($39, shipping included) and back in your hands in about 72 hours—total price of $58.99.

Which way to go? Well, for $20 and a small amount of effort, you can do it yourself. For $58.99 round trip, you can have the job done for you.

Either way, you'll have an iPod mini that's ready for service for a lot less than even a refurbished iPod. Good deal...