Apple Rep says this is a battery issue - Iphone 4

I have a major issue with my iphone 4 which started two days ago. My phone was in my office in the morning after an overnight charge. I came back in and found it on the floor (not sure how it got there). When I looked at the phone it appeared to be rebooting (apple logo). It then went dead. I plugged it in and it rebooted and then asked me to connect to itunes, like the phone was completely wiped. I unplugged the phone and it immediately died. Now I can get to the "connect to itunes" screen under power but it is dead while not plugged in or while connected to a computer (for itunes access).

I find it hard to believe this is a battery issue alone as my troubleshooting skills would tell me that if so I'd be able to boot when it's plugged in, and a battery failure alone would not cause a system crash.

The phone is two years old so I'm not going to put the money into a battery replacement, but not sure I want to upgrade. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Two years does seem a little soon for the battery to die, but depending on how you've been charging it and the individual battery itself perhaps its not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

If the phone powers up and works OK when plugged in, at least it's OK. I replaced the battery on my iPhone 3G and it wasn't that expensive. I'm not sure how much the iPhone 4 batteries are going for these days..

The phone doesn't power up okay, that was my point. It's like it was completely wiped. It's asking me to connect to itunes for restore. the probability of the battery dying and phone getting wiped at the same time is pretty darn low, at least not without some catastrophic failure. I'm completely at a loss.

Sounds like a flash corruption or something. I wonder if you restore the iPhone if it will charge the battery and operate normally..

Is it possible to restore the phone when I can't power off a usb connected to a computer and the only option I have is to connect to itunes. If I unplug from the wall it goes dead. I feel like I'm stuck in some excel circular reference, where I can't do anything. Very strange. I'm more than willing to restore but I can't get there from what I'm seeing.

Strange that it needs the higher current output of the wall charger to stay alive while the USB port is insufficient. Unfortunately if the USB port isn't enough, it's hard to restore the phone.

Can you try leaving the phone plugged in overnight and see if it works connected to the USB port after that?