Cammy's Gadget Collection

Mobile devices and cameras

Computers | Consoles | Mobile devices and cameras | Musical gear | Other

Amazon Kindle 2

Kindle 2 and charging cable

Bought: I don't know when our original one was bought, probably 2009 or so. I believe I bought the second (this working unit) in 2023, but I can't find a hard date, only when I replaced the battery on it in 2024.

Specs:

How it came into my possession: The first Kindle was my older sister's, and I honestly rather liked it and wanted it for my own. While I was briefly syncing and using that first one, the battery had run dry on it from not being used for many years, and they're cheap enough that I just bought another. (Why not just get a modern e-ink reader? I dunno, man. Are you law enforcement? Am I being detained?)

Condition/defects: The battery on the second unit had also previously run dry, so I replaced it with an aftermarket battery. Since then, it's seemed to be fine, though I've not used it heavily enough to really tell if there's any battery wear one way or the other. Still, very comfy stuff. I swear I will read more on it. Calibre makes it super easy to sync stuff to it too.

(Too many) AOL PhotoCam/Pretec DC-600 units

Four AOL PhotoCams, one in box, and a Pretec DC-600

Bought: PhotoCams respectively were July 2019, December 2022, May 2025, and the working two were both July 2025. DC-600 was August 2022.

Specs:

How it came into my possession: Early digicam autism. I've watched too many LGR 90's digicam videos and I wanted one of my own, but it needed to shoot on a medium I could get photos off of (like a CompactFlash card I could stick in a reader). The PhotoCam seemed to meet all my checkboxes, and being branded as an AOL camera is a neat extra. I've bought three units, one of which is working, in the pursuit of getting a single working PhotoCam, plus the Pretec (an OEM unbranded version of the PhotoCam with a slightly worse sensor) and a new-in-box fourth unit by a kind soul on Reddit after I posted about my pursuit there.

Condition/defects: The first one I got doesn't power on at all and has a floppy battery door. The second one's internal storage is goo and it only sadly blinks the power LED in the pursuit of life. The Pretec works, but the battery door is also knackered and requires a bit of force to hold the batteries in with your hand, and retrieving photos off the CF card is unreliable. Finally, my working PhotoCam has no defects, though a fully-loaded set of batteries can spring the door open if you're unlucky, so to reduce the strain on it and thus the chances of it also breaking, I usually walk around with the battery door open. (The new-in-box one is presumed fully working, though I kept it all in its original packaging as a collector's piece.)

To say the PhotoCam was an insane saga is an understatement. Six years, several failed attempts to get a working one, and they're really tricky to use in the present day. I've been a little gun-shy to truly road test the PhotoCam on a trip or something, given what all it took to get here, but that's also a shame to say. These were consumer devices meant to give up their lives in pursuit of good memories, and I should honor that.

The gorey details of the entire saga are recounted in the "Cammy vs. the PhotoCam" trilogy on Letters From Somnolescent— the original, "Cammy Revisits the PhotoCam", and "Cammy vs. the PhotoCam III: This Has Gotten Stupid". It's a good time, check them out! (The last of the three is probably all you need to read, in truth.)

Canon PowerShot A20

My PowerShot next to its carrying case with manual inside

Bought: June 2025.

Specs:

How it came into my possession: I wanted a slightly less temperamental retro digicam than the PhotoCam to take on trips, and Canon was always kind of the lead for them, and this one was cheap and confirmed working.

Condition/defects: There's a few dead pixels on the sensor (expected for a camera this old), but everything else is great. About the most trouble I have with it is when it complains I haven't given it the freshest vine-ripe batteries I can find and shuts off in the middle of use (as it did many times taking the shots for this page).

iPhone 5S

iPhone 5S and box

Bought: Had to have been 2013? Don't recall the price, probably on a carrier for a monthly payment.

Specs:

How it came into my possession: My older sister bought it, and I got it when she moved on. It was a nice upgrade from my iPod Touch for obvious reasons, and the same dimensions and screen size meant I was basically already used to it. I used it as my phone from 2017 until 2020, when I gave up having a phone number for a bit because it was cheaper with no income.

Condition/defects: The battery on this thing is very, very worn, there's some minor cosmetic chipping around the bezel from where I've dropped it over the years (though no screen cracks), I think the home button is fucked on it, and most amusingly, the glue holding the screen in place has basically completely worn off, and now the screen likes to fall right out of the housing. This is apparently a known issue with this model.

What I use it for: Not a lot at the moment. The screen, the battery, and the inconvenience of it just being so ancient has meant that I swapped over to just using my normal modern phone for my authenticator app and anything else this phone was kept in service for.

iPod Shuffle 1G

First-gen iPod Shuffle with cap off

Bought: November 2019 for this current unit. I don't think it was more than $15.

Specs:

How it came into my possession: This was my first iPod, way back in the mid-2000s! I spent a whole lot of time playing with my mom's Nano (which I had until it stopped being detected by computers and then stopped powering on altogether), and so, they gave me a 1GB Shuffle to get me away from it. I used it partially as a flash drive until I lost it at school, and nostalgia got me to buy another.

Condition/defects: I swear something isn't quite right with mine. I get errors when I sync in iTunes (which could just be it overzealously trying to overfill the memory), and at some point in the playlist, I have to restart it because it gets confused. It does power on and sync and play music though, and that's what I wanted.

What I use it for: I don't have much of a use for a dedicated audio player at the moment, but the first-gen Shuffle sounds great still, and I've walked around with it outside before, happily disconnected to everything but my music. I'd still like to get one of the fuzzy Shuffle socks to stick it in; I had a blue one back in the day.

iPod Touch 5G

Fifth-gen iPod Touch and box

Bought: I probably upgraded around Christmas 2013. Twas a gift.

Specs:

How it came into my possession: This one was an upgrade and replacement for my first ever iOS device, a fourth-gen Touch I spent way too much time playing Nyan Cat: Lost in Space and making YouTube videos with. Needless to say, I used this a ton back in the day too, especially trying to get past our school's web filters using OpenVPN (and playing whack-a-mole with the network guys who kept blocking the servers I was using).

Condition/defects: The battery on this one doesn't even hold a charge anymore. I need to open it up and replace it. The home button is also limp, so that'd need replacing. Beyond that and some minor cosmetic scuffs, still works.

What I use it for: Nothing, at the moment. It's mostly nostalgia and the idea that I'll one day fix it up that keeps it sleeping in its box instead of going off to get recycled.

Kodak EasyShare CX4200

EasyShare CX4200 with the sync cable attached

Bought: July 2025, though not intentionally.

Specs:

How it came into my possession: I wasn't really seeking it out—one of the sellers I was trying to buy a PhotoCam from accidentally sent me this camera instead. To make it right, he eventually gave me my money back, let me keep this camera, and still sent me the intended PhotoCam.

Condition/defects: The SD card slot is totally dead (it's fine, I use the internal storage, I just had to buy a cable for it), and the buttons for the menu controls have a tendency to stick. This can make it a chore to flick through the menus, but it's otherwise working quite nicely. Cute little camera with a different crunch than my other two.

Motorola Moto G Power

Moto G Power and Consumer Cellular box

Bought: August 2021 through Consumer Cellular for the full $179. (Excellent carrier. Wish they didn't limit their marketing to old people.)

Specs:

How it came into my possession: I needed a new phone after Straight Talk was threatening to drop me from their network for daring to use something made last decade. I decided to drop Straight Talk and iOS at the same time while I was at it, and went with this solid somehow "budget" phone that doesn't particularly feel budget to me whatsoever. (The chunkiness and bezels are actually a plus to me, thank you, Android Authority.)

Condition/defects: A little scuffed around the edges, and sometimes the touchscreen spazzes out. Otherwise, fine enough.

What I use it for: It's my phone! Mostly, that's texting, phone calls, and Discord, though I do some YouTube and reading on the Web while I'm bored at work. Like I said, this thing about feels premium to me, and that's because even cheaper phones now are quite a bit more powerful than they used to be, plus it's still new. Reading reviews that call this thing middle of the road while I'm marveling at its big screen and speed befuddle me. The worst I can say is that the camera is pretty blatantly upscaling its shots, they're definitely soft.

Computers | Consoles | Mobile devices and cameras | Musical gear | Other

Wanna chat about anything? Send me something at mariteaux@somnolescent.net!

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