The Flip
Aug 13, 2009 | 1 Comment | @andrewmarcec
At about the size of a box of Necco candy hearts, and priced out at under two hundred dollars, who would have thought that one of the most powerful and compact cameras out there would be this cool? The Flip is a pocket sized video/still camera that shoots in true HD, and will amaze your friends and family like a magician that made a bottle of milk disappear.
The Flip has so many convenient features, it’s tough to pick a place to start. It’s so simple anyone could use it. There are four buttons on the entire camera (the record is the big, red, round one in the center), and the navigation through the videos you take is quick and painless. Simple press the play button and it will pull up the last video you recorded. Want to go back through your other videos? Not a problem simple toggle the left and right arrow keys that surround the record button. Don’t like the quality of the video, or have something too risque on there that you want to wipe before you let your parents borrow it? Press the trash can and it’s deleted! The power button is the only button on one side, no more will you have to worry about which button does what.
The camera fires up in about 2 seconds, no joke this was determined through a very scientifical process called counting. The LCD screen is 2 inches and puts out a whopping 960 x 240 resolution. It is also Transflective so you can use it in bright light and not have all that glare blocking your image. Video puts out resolution of 1280 x 720 and has a bitrate of 9.0 Mbps, if that wasn’t good enough it even does auto white balance and black level calibration.
One of the most convenient features of The Flip is the built in USB 2.0 drive and Flipshare software. This auto installs upon your first plug in, and alerts you of updates as well. The Flipshare software is simply drag and drop, and you are able to edit and post to either Youtube or a blog or even e-mail the finished product to your friends/family without ever unplugging or converting! The HDMI port is built in under the USB in case you’re too lazy to transfer it to your computer, just plug into your HDTV and enjoy!
Thought it does come with a set of rechargeable set of AA batteries that recharge every time you plug the camera into the USB jack, it might make some potential buyers cautious since we live in a lithium battery world. Fear not, the battery has an incredible life span, and will allow you to fill up your entire 8gigs of memory, or 120 minutes of footage…whatever comes first.
BE WARNED! This camera DOES NOT TAKE STILL IMAGES! The way you get still images from the camera is to plug it into the USB port, select the video you want while in the Flipshare software and and simply pull still images from the video you shot. It’s actually much easier because instead of a shutter’s worth of time for an image you have seconds to choose from to get your best shot. Plus, all the stills are Hi-Res!
There is no reason not to own one of these now! To all those who have a Flip, what are you thoughts? To possible consumers what are your worries?
1 Comment to “The Flip”
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Doug Hogan
Aug 13th, 2009The Flip is totally worth the $200 price tag. It makes not only shooting video but also, and more importantly, CAPTURING video a breeze. And with HD space large enough to shoot 2 hours of HD video, you can pretty much just go shoot happy and get a ton of great stuff. Be sure to bring some extra AA batteries beyond the rechargeable ones it comes with. Because though it can hold 2 hours of video, after about 45 minutes of filming off and on my batteries were damn near dead.