Review: Flip Video Ultra Is Flippin’ Handy May 22, 2008

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Camcorders are not very handy. Sure they’ve gotten smaller and now there’s more features on them than the space shuttle, but they are still too bulky to be carried around inconspicuously all day long, waiting for that perfect video moment.

The very small Flip Video camcorder is aiming to change all that and, considering it’s flogged over 1 million units in the US since last November, it’s UK debut in a few weeks could mark a craze on this side of the pond too. It doesn’t hurt that over there it costs just $150 (£75). Here, though, it will cost £99, which is still pretty reasonable

I’ve been playing with the Flip Video Ultra for the past couple of days to see what all the fuss is about and to be honest, it’s been a lot of fun. So what is it? It’s a camcorder around the same size as a fat mobile phone – like the Nokia N95 or something similar – that records video onto 2GB of Flash memory. It measures 4.17 x 2.16 x 1.25in and can record up to 60 minutes of 640 x 480 resolution MPEG-4 video at 30fps. It sports a USB arm for attaching directly to laptops or PCs and contains software that allows you to view and edit what you’ve shot. It also enables you to upload those videos to YouTube or other social networking sites.

The trick to the Flip Video – along with the size - is that it’s really, really simple to use.

For instance, it comes not with an instruction manual, but an instruction leaflet. And even then, there’s not a lot on it. This is the kind of device that not even parents and grandparents could screw up when asked to film the kids birthday party. Of course, all of this simplicity is possible because, well, there are no features. This is the camcorder equivalent of one of those Kodak disposable cameras: just point and shoot. Flip boasts a lens on the front, a bright but small 1.5in display on the back, a TV-out port and just 8 buttons in total: Power, Play, Delete, Record and 4 way navigation. It runs off two AA batteries. So what's it like to use?

This is possibly the simplest device I have come across. Once the batteries were in, I turned it on, pointed it and hit the red button. There’s some small amount of zoom available but nothing to write home about.

Once I’d shot some footage, I attached the device to the USB port and the software loaded automatically. The software, like the rest of the device, is easy to use and allows for some editing and basic movie making but, nothing that takes away from the overall simplicity.

My only issue was the USB arm. It pops out and lets you directly attach the device to your computer but this can prove awkward. My PC has a couple of USB ports on the back but the device was too big to slot in among the other cables while the recessed USB ports on the front, combined with side positing of the Flip’s USB arm, also prevented hook up. Thankfully, things were easier with the laptop’s side-facing USB ports. It would have made more sense for this arm to be located on the top or bottom – the narrowest part - of the device. Even better, if the arm was attached to a short, retractable cable, then there would be no connectivity obstacles. That said, it’s not the worst problem but it needs to be noted.

The video quality is good but probably not as good as that with a dedicated camcorder and, if you’re planning to go HD, look somewhere else. The Flip Video Ultra is designed to be simple-to-use and small and it achieves those goals admirably. If you want something truly portable that shoots video and makes transferring that video to your PC or online a cinch, then Flip Video is the device for you. It launches in the UK in a few weeks from Flip Video UK.-Martin Lynch

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