Believe it or not, people used to carry actual, seperate cameras with them back in the 2000s, in the days before every cellphone was a camera phone, as well as a few years right after. There were many types of cameras from various different companies and different lines back then (many of which, are now sadly discontinued, such as Kodak's Easyshare line of digital cameras). There were disposable cameras as well as digital cameras (if you could afford to own one and perhaps the accesories sold for such cameras as well, like little printer docks that you can purchase seperately and hook up to your computer, for example) and like cellphones, came in all sorts of colors, shapes, and sizes, as well as varying resolutions, settings, means of storing photos and/or videos, etc. There were varying types of cameras for everyone, whether you're a professional photogrpher or cameraperson or just an average person looking for a camera that's a little more consumer and budget friendly (whereas it seems that every standalone digital camera sold in this day and age is aimed at professionals and super expensive, of course).
Although digital cameras were very much a thing back then, many people (like my folks during the first few years of my life until about late 2012 or so when I was 6 years old) were still buying and using disposable cameras to capture photos. I distinctly remember those green Fujifilm cameras in particular, since those were the ones my mother would purchase, use, and then drop off at CVS for developing. During the past year of my life, I finally got to claim the torch for myself and decided to purchase a few disposable cameras to capture some photos using such cameras while I was enjoying some fun things like my senior year activities (including prom and grad nite) and my November 2024 trip to Knott's Berry Farm (I guess some things really do never change, ROFL).
Back to the main topic, a lot of people also owned at least 1 digicam in the 2000s, especially so during the 2nd half of the decade (which you may have seen in mirror self portraits or in MySpace angled photos from that period of time). And just like a lot of other electronics manufactured in the 2000s, many (though certainly not all, as you can see below) cameras from back then were painted in silver.
Similar to regular digicams, there existed another type of camera called a camcorder, which is a camera that can only record videos (unlike most digicams, which can capture both photos and videos). Camcorder storage formats vary quite a lot depending on the model. Some camcorders are tape based camcorders (such as VHS and mini DV camcorders), whereas others store videos by other, more digital means (such as mini DVD and mini HDD camcorders). Many recordable home tape/disc companies produced miniature tapes and/or discs that were made specifically for and could fit inside of these camcorders.
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Important Note:
Unfortunately, many older cellphones and PDAs no longer work due to cellular networks in many countries shutting down their 2G and/or 3G networks (like they did here in the US in recent years). If you're considering getting a flip phone as of February 2025, it will need to be a 4G flip phone if you live in one of the affected 2G/3G shutdown countries due to this sort of planned obsolescence. :(
Also, if you plan on getting a Unihertz phone, make sure your carrier doesn't have any arbitrary carrier locks/restrictions that would prevent you from activating and using a cellphone not on the carrier's pre-approved cellphone whitelist on the carrier's network (looking at you, AT&T).
