Last month I received a Flip Ultra digital camera as a birthday present from Hannah. There are two different models of the Flip video camera made by Pure Digital Technologies. The Flip Ultra and the Flip Mino. I have seen the Flip run for as high as $180.00, and as low as $120.00. Just depends one where you do your shopping.
Hannah got me the Flip Ultra because it takes 2 AA batteries and she knows I’m currently on a kick of any electronics that take batteries you can easily find in a store. The Ultra comes with a built in 2GB of flash memory that allows for an hour of recording of video in 640×480 resolution at 30 frames per second, using the MPEG-4 ASP video compression. In other words, it dose a damn good job for what it is.
The first thing I really love about this little digital video recorder is the size. It is so small and easy to take with you anywhere you go. I pretty much have it with me all the time now. It’s push button easy of use. Record, play, zoom in an out. That’s pretty much it.
The unit comes with a built-in USB plug that connects easily to any computer. It’s built in software that runs from the camera allows for basic video editing and uploading to youtube (weather you use Macintosh or Windows). However, I had no trouble copying the video of the Flip Ultra onto my computer and editing it with iMovie on my Apple Macintosh.
Since I have received the Flip, I have edited two movies with it. One that ended up on youtube and you can see that here. The other, I made and burned to DVD. They both look great. I can tell you from my experience that the quality of the video looks a lot better then what ends up on youtube. I am also impressed with the lack of shakiness I got from the camera. True, it dose not come close to handling hand shakes like my Cannon DV camera, but I was still impress nonetheless.
Pros:
- Small size
- Impressive video quality
- Ease of use
Cons:
- Horrible zoom
- No steady cam, or anti-shake features
Buying Advice: I really think these little flash video cameras are going to be come more and more populer as time goes on. For a first time owner of a video camera this would be a great starting point. For someone who has video camera experince I think they will enjoy the flip because of it’s convinunt size, and simplicity from shoot to edit. Because of this, I feel like not only myself, but others will be makeing more personal videos then with a normal handy came or mini camcorder.
