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Flip Video Ultra Series

I think I want one of these:

It’s a Flip Video Ultra - a super portable, super simple video camera. I heard about it today while checking out some footage shot at SXSW this past week. It uses flash memory and AA batteries and hooks to your computer via a flip-out USB connector. There is a lesser line branded only “flip video”, but in the ultra line there are two models - a 1GB 30 minute version and a 2GB 60 minute version. The ultra has a higher video bit rate (4.5 Mbps) and is better calibrated for low lighting than the original flip. The ultra also has a tripod mount unlike the base line.

It produces a good quality video (640 x 480 res) in MPEG-4 AVI format,. It’s plenty good enough for youtube, video blogging and catching things on-the-go. It’s much better quality than a camera phone with video and better than most digital camera’s video functions. For complete specs, check out this page of their site.

Obviously, this is made to be portable and extremely easy to use and cannot rival miniDV cameras and the like. If you are looking for anything of remotely pro quality this is not it. If you are looking to replace the lame video function of your cell phone or point-and-shoot digital camera this could be the way to go.

It looks to be much better than the video function of my Kodak EasyShare V570 and easier to use. I have to turn the Kodak on, switch to video mode, then record. It produces .mov files which I have to convert to AVI before I can do anything with them unlike a Flip Video which already produces AVI files. There is way more noise in the night video than I would like (what’s the video work for that…artifacts?) in my Kodak. I don’t usually even have my point-and-shoot Kodak with me for still pics, I just use my iPhone. I think the combo of camera phone and a pint-size video camera would work better for me. Check out some sample footage from the flip here. Click on “perfect picture quality”.

Some cons of the Flip Video would be that it’s memory isn’t expandable and it only has a 2x digital zoom. Also, if you were recording without access to a device for offloading footage, it would fill up fast. A microphone jack would be nice, but that’s probably over-complicating a simple device. I also checked out the RCA EZ201 Small Wonder, which is pretty much the same thing except the EZ201 takes an SD card to expand it’s memory and has a flip out screen so you can view what you are recording if you are in front of the camera. Makes the RCA seem better, right? After reading many reviews I’ve found that everyone that has tried both seems to like the Flip better for it’s higher video quality.

The 2GB 60 minute Flip Video Ultra is $142.80 (black is $149.99) on amazon.com with free shipping, on special for $139.99 at target.com with shipping not included (it’s available online only at Target) and $179.99 on the official site, theflip.com , shipping included.