Cisco Flip Mino HD 8GB video camera Appearing in its second-generation guise in March this year, the Flip Mino HD received a few refinements, the most obvious being the larger 2in screen and an 8GB version allowing for up to two hours of video recording. Yet this popular pocket video camera has always lacked image stabilisation, that is, until now. Cisco Flip …
Fair point, why not get an iPod. Well, as the old saying goes, it's horses for courses. The iPod is a great music player, it has more memory and greater battery life but it lacks a digital zoom, image stabilisation, a more sensibly placed lens, the "flip" USB connector and inbuilt editing software [although iMovie and even Windows Movie Maker are better] but the real killer - from my perspective, is the tripod mount.
Even using a little Gorilla tripod delivers great stable images
Although this Flip may not have a tripod mount, but if you can get Gorillapod mobile tripod lit, it comes with a tripod head mounted on an adhesive clip – stick it to the Flip and you’re done.
The Zi8, which has been mentioned, has a tripod mount – plus all the other advantages that that been mentioned, and this is the piece of kit I would choose every time.
That all said, I don’t feel that I don’t think there’s much point for many consumers having a dedicated pocket cam- a phone or an iPod will do the job they want.
Still looks like a little too much compression on the video.
Just needs to back off about 15-20% maybe.
I would be happy to get around half the recording time for better video quality.
I remember that 2 mins of Single8 fuji film was more than enough to cover a two week holiday in the Algarve.
Otherwise these things are going in the right direction, sort of.
My non-HD camcorder has a 30GB HDD and I fill it before I can sync it often. At full res, non HD, it stores 9 hours. 8GB storing 2hours in HD? in what format and with what compression? My iPhone does HD too, and with 32GB of storage I can fill that thing up damned quick. No HD camcorder should have less than 32GB unless it has SDXC card slots in addition to internal storage.
Great, it's pocket sized. I'd rather have an iPhone in my pocket and a real camcorder in a bag. A pocket camcorder can at best be marginally better than a phone. A slightly less convenient hand camcorder not only has a far superior lens (and filter attachments supporting industry standard add-ons), but also has better storage, more features, better file format controls, and more. Very little of what I'd ever shoot with a shaky hand device is going to be much better one a flip than a phone. A handheld full camcorder is a bit more stable to start with, is easier to hold for longer shoots, has far better stability management in the lens, and is easily mounted to any tripod/mono-pod.
If it was $199, maybe, if it had 16-32GB of ram.... vs an iPod or any smartphone that shoots in HD? no.
"Plus not all of us want to buy Apple products. Some of us use our own decison making when purchasing such products rather than follow the excitable herd."
Arguably, buying a Flip would be following the herd - it's seen as the market leader, but isn't actually the best.
bluest.one mentioned most of the advantages of the Zi8 over the Flip models, but didn't mention the most important - better quality footage. It's cheaper too - you can pick a Zi8 for around £100. By all means, use your own decision making abilities, but if you think the Flip is the best option, I would advise letting others make their own decisions.
If someone already has a phone capable of taking decent footage, then it's unlikely that they really need to to buy an extra gadget to cart around, which was the point Michael C was making. iPhones aren't the only smartphone with decent video recording, after all.
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