[Galaxy Camera Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cardslash02:
Hi all,

I've been lurking xda for a while, getting the answers to my problems with other devices. But I don't think that anyone's ever had this particular issue with the Galaxy Camera before, so I joined up to post this.

Long story short, I saw an ad on Craigslist from some guy selling a "ATT brand Galaxy Camera" that was barely used for a ridiculously low price. Needless to say, I jumped on it. But when I saw the actual camera, I had some doubts. It didn't look like it did in all the product pictures. Something was wrong. I asked the guy what the deal was, but he had no clue. So I made the transaction and came home to take a closer look at it.

Here's what is different:

The body of the camera is made of some sort of rough plastic. There's no smooth plastic with metallic highlights. There's screws sticking out the sides, too. And little holes in a lot of places. And the shape is slightly off from the standard camera model.

Here's a pic:

[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]

The lens looks standard, though. But you can see there's what appears to be a product number embossed on the left side along with a Samsung sticker.

Here's a closeup of that:

[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]

The Samsung sticker looks pretty legit, and it is the correct model number for the galaxy camera. The product number is hard to see, so I'll type it out: S3GA-0766.

But the biggest oddity by far in the body is the UNPOPPABLE flash. The plastic of the body clearly holds the flash bulb immobile above the body of the camera.

Here's what I mean:

[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]

You see? That flash isn't going ANYWHERE. It's held firmly in place, sticking out like a sore thumb from the side of the camera. It's what most bothers me about my ill-fortuned purchase. That immobile flash makes the camera look ugly and hard to fit in camera bags.

Plus, it doesn't even work! Oh, I know the mechanics of it works, because the flash... flashes whenever I turn on the camera app. HOWEVER, the flash is disabled in the app and when I try to enable it, a popup message says "Pop-up the flash"... so it's like the camera doesn't know the flash is permanently popped up. It's weird beyond belief.

Here's a top view camera:

[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]

You can see the immobile flash and the shutter and power buttons, which for lack of a better word I'd describe as "unfinished". They don't have any coverings on those buttons, just the plastic button mechanism. But, they work, so I won't complain about it.

You can also see some more random holes, maybe for screws or something.

Finally, the screen and OS. The screen is real nice and appears to be working fine. But as for Android itself..

[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]

It appears to be stuck in what I believe is called "Factory Mode" in which there's a constant dark overlay with yellow text info over everything you do in Android. It pretty much makes the camera unusable because I can't see anything behind that overlay. At least Android is working, though.

I will type up that overlay info:

PDA: GC100UCALH5

Phone: N/A

CSC: GC100ATTALH5

H/W: Not Active

RF Cal Date: N/A

SMD: 01N, PBA: 04N

CAMERA: N/A, FrontCAM: N/A

TSP: 0x15

TSK: N/A

Band: N/A, CH:N/A

UART: N/A, USB: N/A

UN: C0890B190FD726F

From all this I'm going to make a guess that this is some kind of factory model version of the Galaxy camera that was never supposed to see the light of day. I'm not sure where the guy I bought it from got it from, and he appeared to be equally clueless. If i had a tiny enough screw driver I'd take apart the body and see what was underneath, but I don't. If you all are interested I suppose I can go buy one.

Honestly this is not what I wanted. I don't want a mystery or an enigma but an actual working camera. I suppose I got what I deserved for making that Craiglist deal, though. If any of you want to trade this model for a working ATT brand, I'd love to negotiate.

But if I'm stuck with this camera, here's my priorities to try and make it work:

1. Disable factory mode, root and update firmware

2. Figure out the deal with the flash, try to get it to work normally, and if not, saw it off the top of the camera to remove the unsightly sore thumb

3. Get some sort of TPU covering to cover up the rough ugly plastic of the body and all the holes and screws sticking out.

If any of you can help me with these issues, please let me know!