Needless to write, I have been largely quiet these past few weeks for reasons both mundane and occasionally interesting. My wife’s pregnancy has been a roller coaster so that is one excuse the other is my less than two year old iRiver needed a battery replacement so my music listening has been spotty at best especially during prime dog walking hours. I had ordered a replacement on eBay last month but figured I could squeeze a couple more months out of the old one. Nope.

This morning was the last straw as a full night’s charge yielded about 5 minutes of playback which left me really unhappy. Lucky for me there have been some brave souls that preceded me in changing their batteries and documented the struggle against really snug manufacturing. The first complaint I had was who in their right mind put the molex plug on the opposite side of the board? Really, as if it wasn’t hard enough to get the cover off I have to disassemble the entire product just to unplug the old battery and plug in the new. the next complaint is what the hell was I thinking to undertake this task without a set of tweezers? Those screws are really little and my fingers are stubby and sweaty.

All said and done I had the old battery out and the new one in and charging in about 45 minutes. 45 expletive filled minutes. But now I should be able to listen to an album all the way through without needing to be plugged into an outlet or sitting at my computer so look for some reviews from me soon.

UPDATE: Scott jogged my memory that I should update with the links to the store where I got the battery. Licketysplitauctions has em for 1/2 the cost of Staples and it ships quick!