So for $200-$250 plus the cost of the battery, this person now has an iPod Mini that's 8 GB instead of 4GB. Mmm-hmmm. And that means $300+ when you could have purchased a brand new iPod - nano or video -- for either less or not that much more. Cool on being able to do the install. Duh for spending all that money to upgrade a -- albeit sadly -- now outdated mp3 player.

Yes, i realize the cost-benefit isn't totally there yet. Still, its cool that it works and might be an option for some people!

Huh? Why? It still plays music, what else is it supposed to do? To be honest, colour screens and the ability to play video are just gimmicks for the sole purpose of making people feel their's is outdated, why give into slick advertising?

Yes, a color screen would be cool - but by no means is the mini "outdated". It can still play all the same audio file formats, and is still a great form factor. If Jason wants to increase the storage space in his unit, more power to him.

But, also keep in mind that older iPods and the mini (all capable of Firewire data connections) can be used as bootable hard drives - not so with the USB-only nano and new "video-capable" iPod. This is, admittedly, a fringe use of this device - but for those of us who have grown accustomed to the great usage and feature set, the elimination of this capability is a significant issue.

In all, its the new iPods which - unless you absolutely "must" have the nano's small size and/or the new iPod's video capability - seem to be less-than compelling upgrades. Spending the money on enhancements to a more-capable unit, actually sounds like a viable plan to me. As such I'm going to keep my 20 Gb color iPod around for quite some time to come...

ipodmods.com has the 8GB drive here: http://www.ipodmods.com/shop/ipod-mini-hard-drives.html they are #1 for any ipod repair. http://www.ipodmods.com