Broken iPod Touch: Repair or replace?

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Ouch.

Is there a worse feeling than seeing your iPod Touch smack the ground and hearing the unmistakable crack of glass?

Just one: picking up the iPod and realizing the screen is shattered top-to-bottom. That was one expensive attack of gravity.

This happened to my daughter not long ago, resulting in a fourth-gen iPod Touch that, remarkably, still worked, but really wasn't usable anymore owing to the spider web of cracked glass.

As the household cheapskate, I figured it would be cheaper to repair the unit than buy a new one. After all, a current 32GB iPod Touch sells new for $299 and refurbished one for $249.

Sure enough, a quick check of eBay revealed "4th-gen iPod Touch glass digitizer touchscreens" for as little as $12 -- repair tools included. Sold!

Heh, heh, too bad for the suckers paying $70, $80, even $100 to have their iPods fixed by professionals. I can operate a screwdriver; how hard could the job be?

Before I could find out, I discovered that I'd wasted $12. Although only the Touch's glass was broken, the 4th-gen model is designed in such a way that it's permanently adhered to the LCD beneath it. Even though the latter was still functioning, some online research revealed that it's close to impossible to replace just the glass. Crud.

(As I understand it, and as detailed in Donald Bell's story on ... [Read more]