Okay, that was a bit on the cheesy side but I couldn’t help myself. I was sure “You’ll flip for the Flip Mino” had already been done so I decided to get a little creative. But don’t let the title of this review fool you. The Flip Mino is definitely not cheesy. In fact, it is so not cheesy it illicited a “Wow! That is pretty amazing!” from my husband, who loves all things tech and is not easily impressed.

What is the Flip Mino and why is it cool enough to catch my husband’s attention? (By the way, it had my attention when it showed up in all its tiny sleek glory.) The Flip Mino is a pocket-sized camcorder that allows you to record with just a touch of your thumb. Its memory can hold up to 60 minutes of high-quality video. No need to replace the batteries; this baby has a rechargeable lithium ion battery and charges using your USB port. You get over 4 hours of recording per charge! I loved the flip-out USB arm because it meant one less time I’d have to mess with a USB cord.

I am totally one for reading directions, to my husband’s chagrin, but I thought I’d try the Flip Mino without them. I powered it up and was recording within seconds. I did have to browse the directions to make sure I was fully utilizing the on-screen features of the Flip Mino, but I had it down in no time. I did notice the tripod mount but I’m not sure I’ll ever use it. For me the Flip Mino is all about ease of use and impromptu videos.

While writing this review I discovered a couple other features: a “child safe” mode to prevent accidental deletions of clips; 2x digital zoom (though like most digital zooms it leaves something be desired); 1.5” color high-brightness (transflective) display for super-clear viewing in bright sunlight (I did notice it was a lot easier to record our kids’ snowman with the Flip Mino than it was to take a picture of it with our digital camera); silent mode for recording in sensitive situations (wow, never thought about that…opens up a whole new world of possibilities!); and a TV connector cable so you can watch videos on television.

Now that we have the Flip Mino’s specs out of the way, here’s what I really thought of this pocket-sized camcorder. It TOTALLY ROCKS Yes, it was simple to power on, record and even delete videos on the Flip itself, but when I plugged the USB arm into my computer the magic really happened. I kept my fingers crossed it would recognized the “new hardware” and then the Flip would download its own video software. The finger crossing worked because that’s just what it did. Within just a few minutes my videos were on screen inside the FlipShare window. It was so easy to navigate I didn’t once need to read the directions. I saved the videos to my computer (just a couple clicks of the mouse) and even cut a few seconds off the end of one.

You can advance the movie in super slow motion, frame by frame, and then even take a snapshot of a frame and save it as a JPEG on your computer. I gave that a go and both my husband and I were impressed with the quality of the photo (seen at right). It wasn’t the clearest picture we’ve seen but for a tiny camcorder and only 2x digital zoom, it was pretty nifty. Of course my next step was to see how easy it was to upload a video to YouTube, and there it was, right at the top of the FlipShare window: “Share” I clicked, dragged the pointer to “Online” and then “YouTube…” and clicked again. A window popped up so I could log in; I logged in, clicked “Next” and it started uploading the video. After a few minutes, it was live on YouTube. I even IM’d my parents the link so they could check it out. I was a bit disappointed with the quality of the video on YouTube (it looked 100x better on our computer) but it was still a kick to be able to share it so quickly! And just so you know I’m totally serious about the YouTube thing, here’s our little girl in all her musical glory (and you don’t have to watch the whole thing…I won’t take it personally):

Besides uploading to sites like YouTube, AOL and MySpace you can share your video via email. FlipShare even has editing tools so you can create custom movie mixes with music. How cool is that!

The Flip Mino costs around $180 but I think it’s totally worth it for this little guy. (You can actually get a Flip MinoHD for only $50—might be worth it.) It’s small enough for me to keep it in my diaper bag without taking up too much needed space. How many times have you been somewhere and wished you had a camera? Those cell phone cameras don’t always cut it. Now you can capture that “did he just stick a french fry up his nose” moment on video (moving picture and sound)...and then share it with the world.—Emily

tags camera, Flip Camera, Flip Mino, Mino HD, Technology, Video

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Daily Dish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.