Well he said they only last 18 months. But is there any way to replace them, and at what cost? Is that 18 months with recharges? Must be.
You can replace the ipod battery.
If a battery quits after 18 months, that's not exactly a shocking thing. But clearly there's more to the story, as this teaser post suggests...but doesn't deliver...
I got a Creative Nomad Jukebox 40GB for... I forget but it was a lot cheaper than the iPod. I've just never thought Apple was so much better than the competition to pay the extra money for their shi-ite.
This has been known for a long time. The charge to replace the batteries is about $250. Only Apple can do so.
Seems like someone had an external battery device you could plug into the 'charger' port. I don't recall who that was. But that required carrying around the Ipod and the battery device.