Good – but a bit flippin’ boring!

I gave the rather wicked Flip video device to Patrick Smith of Sonus PR to check out over the weekend. Here’s his perspective:

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As those of you that read Ewan’s quick intro to the Flip will have seen – he’s already used it to shoot an embarrassing video of me walking around Soho eating a sandwich! So to stop him doing that again I took it out of his hands and decided to have a quick play with it myself.

One of the main advantages of the Flip is just how simple it is to use: turn it on, press the red button to record, press the red button to stop recording, then insert the USB to your computer and download your film – easy.

However, one of the main disadvantages of the Flip is just how simple it is. What I’ve described above is pretty much it. Once you’ve mastered that (about 7 seconds after getting it out of the box) there’s nothing else to play with. No buttons to press. No features to explore. Nothing. It’s a bit dull really.

That said, it does what it sets out to do very well.

Here’s a quick video of the queue at Kings Cross train station in London taken with the Flip (I didn’t film for too long in case they thought I was scoping out the joint for a terrorist attack). As you can see the quality is pretty good.

Here’s a screen capture of the original AVI file — the quality is brilliant:

There are a few minor niggles – the screen’s a bit small, the device itself is a bit too big, the zoom isn’t great … but they are just minor niggles. In fact, to be able to take quick films, simply and easily I think the Flip is great.

It is just a bit boring … but that’s probably a sign that it ‘does what it says on the tin’ so well.

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Thanks for that Patrick!