If someone says camcorder to you, I bet you automatically think of big bulky things that you need a special little bag to carry around, not to mention arms of steal to hold in place for any length of time. Even the supposedly small ones are sometimes a big hassle to carry with you, so most people will settle for a digital camera, and leave the camcorder at home unless they know for sure they’re going to use it.
Well, those days are well and truly drawing to a close with the recent launch of the Flip Mino HD. When they call it the worlds smallest video camera, the weren’t kidding. It looks about the size of a regular mobile phone. Which means it’d fit very handily in your pocket or your bag, ready to be pulled out at a moments notice, thus enabling you to capture every moment in high definition action, be it a ‘You’ve Been Framed’ worthy fall or a way for you to join the Vblogging masses and broadcast your thoughts to the world as they happen.
And uploading you’re videos to the computer couldn’t be easier either. No more fiddling with wires- the Flip Mino HD has a built in USB connection, meaning you can plug it straight into your computer and away you go. You can also transfer the videos to MySpace and Youtube directly, making sharing the videos with friends easy.
There’s 4GB of built in memory- thats a whole hours worth of footage. Take it to the summers festivals, or on holiday with you, or even just to next doors BBQ and you can film away to your hearts content. You get two hours continuous use from a change, which can be done by USB (fully charged in three hours) or by mains cable (fully charged in two hours). So you’ve no excuse for missing whatever adorable thing your dog just did.
I desperately wish I had one of these to play with so I could tell you all about ease of use and convenience, but from what I’ve heard from other people, the Flip Mino HD may actually be as good as it sounds. The only thing I don’t know about is if it takes photo stills, which would mean you didn’t need to carry a separate camera. If anyone does know, tell me in the comments!
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9 thoughts on “Flip Mino HD- the worlds smallest HD video camera”
The Flip Mino HD is a pretty cool little gadget. I have had on for about a week. The videos are good quality as long as you have decent lighting. They do get a little grainy in low light conditions. It does not take photo stills, but the integrated software allows you to pull snapshots out of your video clips, which is a cool little feature.
Ah a screen shot function? I suppose you could just take a mini clip whenever you wanted to photo something. Would eat your footage time though. Unless you can get a really small digital camera too so carrying both round wouldn’t be too bulky… :)
Flip is a nice product, but for comparison one might want to have a look at the Creative Vado HD or the Kodak Zi6 and Zx1 too. They all offer HD video and differ in flavors of one might need.
Although it’s a nice product, I find the lack of memory a big issue with the Flip. What happens if you’re out and about and you fill up the memory? You can’t do anything without deleting what you’ve shot.
And an hour isn’t that much, certainly not enough for a festival! I’d rather have a product that uses SD cards, that way when it fills up you just pop in a new SD card and carry on. I have a Kodak Zi6 and love it…
@RalfWJWerner- What other functions do the cameras you mention have? Lets get a comparison going! :)
@Martin I’ve tended to take photos more than video in the past, taking only small video clips, so wouldn’t use more than an hour Although if video cameras are your thing then true, an hour wouldn’t be that long would it? Hmm. So we want a stills ability, and a memory card slot.
Anything else that’d make the perfect camera for anyone?
Hey Ruth. I don’t shoot loads of video either, but I’d be really worried if I knew it could fill up and I’d be unable to do anything about it without a computer.
As for what I might want from my next purchase, something that wont break if I sit on it or get it wet would be a good start – after all, these things are meant to be taken everywhere!
@Ruth – what other functions?
Here a couple that I have seen:
Creative Vado – in a lot of test, best indoor / low light performance.
Zi6 – best Audio recording – type in drums + Zi6 into Youtube – the bongo sound test is nice. Also larger LCD and Macro Mode.
Zx1 – 60fps give a nice smooth image. Splashwater and dust resistant. (this is the one I use – picked it because most of my clips I take outdoors)
It is great device what a screen shot function? I suppose you could just take a mini clip whenever you wanted to photo something. Would eat your footage time though. Unless you can get a really small digital camera too so carrying both round wouldn’t be too bulky
Believe it or not one hour of footage is quite enough. On a two week holiday to disney I used half an hour of the memory. Remember it is also possible to plug it into any computer in your hotel or internet cafe and send the footage home in minutes.Great quality all round my best buy ever!!