POST: The Last Good Device I Ever Bought

In the late 2000s I didn't have a smartphone yet. Most of us didn't. My first smartphone was an iPhone 3 back in the days when Apple was still making good products. It was obvious even then that phones would replace 'unitaskers'. While that has been an obvious benefit in some ways, it has actively made certain things worse.

The last really good device I ever bought was a Flip Video camera. It is better at what it does in most respects than a smartphone, and while it does have some limitations, in some ways those limitations are benefits. And while you can buy unitasking video cameras today, most don't offer the same benefits as the Flip.

Replaceable Batteries: We all have them at home. Rechargables are cheap enough to have a large supply at home, and you can buy disposable batteries anywhere if you run out while on the go. At the time, this didn't seem like a big deal, but here, 15 years later, it's a very big deal.

The problem with non-replaceable rechargable batteries is that they have a limited lifespan. It's hard to imagine any modern device still turning on after a decade in a cupboard, but with a fresh set of AAs, my Flip did exactly that.

It's Dumb: Any device that requires a server somewhere or an app on your phone to operate is almost certainly collecting your data, but more than that, it stops working when those servers shut down. If Google stops supporting Google Home, your Google Home stops working. If Wyze closes, maybe your Wyze Cam still works, but without updates, the App will eventually stop being supported.

Flip stores your videos in .mp4 format. These are widely supported today. It allows you to transfer those files directly to your computer over USB without any proprietary software, or even a cable. You just pop out the male USB connector that gives the device its name and plug it in, at which point your computer recognizes it like any other USB drive. There's no need to worry that your network is going to get hacked or your data compromised through the device because it has no access to the internet.

Limited Storage: I use an Android phone, which comes with Google Photos integrated on the device. My pictures and videos are automatically backed up to the cloud, and the phone notifies me that they've been stored and I can clear them from local storage with a single button click. It's a tremendous convenience that almost certainly comes at a price of having every single bit of data about me and my children collected.

But privacy aside, the unexpected consequence of seamless unlimited storage in the cloud is that photos and videos disappear into the ether. I have so many pictures of my kids that the idea of going through them and printing some out is overwhelming, and if I don't print them, eventually I'll lose access.

The Flip only stores an hour of video, which was more than enough for my purposes (recording myself in shows). The upside is that you have to deal with the videos quickly or you won't have space for more. When I used the Flip a lot, transferring the videos to the computer was an obvious time to burn them to a DVD for backup. Now I'd dump them straight away to an external storage drive or upload them to a personal cloud server... Or maybe just burn a DVD.

Well, I know what you're thinking: show us the goods! How do the videos look? This video was recorded in 2009 with my flip. It's not the impeccable quality we get in modern phones, but the audio isn't bad for what it is.