This one was from a different Toronto research adventure. Instead of contributing to an MA that I would never finish, this one was for the job I was working at the time: historical researcher.

I had purchased this MotoG in 2015 after having successfully broken my iPhone 4S after slipping on some ice the month before. It got some notice in the tech press for being a sort of minimum viable Android phone and I was able to purchase it outright retail for less than it would have cost to repair the iPhone.

For the most part, I did get along well enough with it, and the FM radio tuner was a real boon during a time where I had limited data and was still listening to CBC Radio 1. I still have some fond memories walking around the city with the radio going (often Indie 88 while in Toronto) and making photos.

As the photos above might indicate, that was the phone’s biggest weakness: its camera. Low-resolution, slow, and much worse than the one on the iPhone it replaced (even in the most ideal of conditions), I made do. I mostly shared my photos on Instagram at the time, and they were legendary for their …aggressive compression and resizing (1024px), so while the difference was still noticeable, it was tolerable until I was able to afford a new phone later in the year.