I love gadgets… gadgets can make our lives better… gadgets can also be a big waste of money!!!
My latest gadget purchase from Amazon has just arrived at the Enigin office, a Flip HD Digital Camcorder. It’s a small device, about the size of compact digital camera, that will record HD quality video at the touch of a button.
Flip are owned by networking company Cisco and my first thoughts are that they are heavily influenced by Apple (we love Apple!) in terms in packaging. It’s a very iPod-experience removing the device from the folding series of boxes. The FlipHD powered up without any charging and within 20 seconds I was already recording video! Here’s my first 13 second video, Enigin Designer, Alan talking about the Christmas chart battle between Rage Against the Machine and X-Factor:
The simplicity of this unit is it’s crowning glory. There are three main buttons on the back; Record, Play and Delete. I don’t think they need explaining! There’s also an up/down/left/right keypad to navigate through the recorded videos and operate the zoom. The only other thing on the back is the lovely high-resolution 2″ LCD display, which is visible in daylight conditions.
My version of the FlipHD has a whopping 8GB of internal memory, enough for store 2 hours of HD footage. The footage is easily downloaded via the flip-up USB connection and you can be uploading to YouTube within minutes.
Pros
- Very simple and easy to use
- Great value
- Quality product
Cons
- No option to turn HD compression off
- Built in USB not always convenient to use (although an extension can be purchased)
- CMOS sensor not too good in low-light conditions
Summary
Great product at a great price, I can’t recommend it highly enough!
Update
After using the Flip HD over the festival period, I love it! I’m even thinking about buying one for my parents! Great buy 5/5!!
