Flip Video Flip Mino

The Flip Mino ($179 MSRP) is the smallest and most advanced camcorder to date from the American upstart company Pure Digital. Following the enormously successful Flip and Flip Ultra, Pure Digital has helped usher in a renaissance of enthusiasm for home movies by making the process both extremely easy and dirt cheap. The Mino offers a handful of advances over previous generations - including an improved interface, better video processing, and a microphone upgrade - but the company has gone on record saying it will not upgrade its star product too much. The best thing about the Flip Mino remains the utter simplicity. A child can, and probably will, use this without any of the frustrations associated with the average camcorder. 

Of course, the obvious downside to all this is that the Flip Mino is not much of a camcorder when you stand it up against something that costs even $100 more. The lack of manual controls or even basic features will appall some people. There is no manual focus or exposure. There's not even an optical zoom, but rather a paltry 2x digital zoom. In iPod fashion, the camcorder does not even allow you access to the internal battery. When it dies, it may be presumed that the camcorder has gone with it. So is it worth it? For thousands, the answer was a resounding yes to the previous generation. Let's see how it stands up to some touch testing.

The Front (3.50)
At first glance, it's startling to see how minute the Mino is compared to any other pocket cam on the market. The Mino is slightly dwarfed by its big brother, the Flip Ultra, which is a feat that warrants some sort of accolade - we're now approaching iPod-size territory. The Mino feels tiny and is rife with simplicity, displaying a facade that contains only the built-in 2x digital zoom lens and microphone mounted to its right. The Mino has a fixed aperture of f/2.4 and fixed focus of 1m to infinity. This proves to be frustrating, as the camcorder cannot properly focus on a subject that's closer than a foot from the lens.

The Right Side (3.25)
Here's another angle of the Mino's South Beach Diet profile, displaying only an On/Off button located at the top and an AV jack at the bottom. This camcorder is a wafer. This time, Pure Digital opted for a Power button instead of the nondescript Power switch found on the Flip Ultra. You have to hold down the Power button slightly longer than it would take to slide a switch, but at least it's more difficult to inadvertently power the Flip Mino on this way.

The right side of the Flip Mino

The Back (5.25)
The back is where you'll find the Mino's central control panel and 1.5-inch embedded LCD screen. A cluster of touch-sensitive controls form a halo around the fire engine red Record Start/Stop button. These controls are lightning quick and highly responsive - a far superior interface to the Flip Ultra's square directional pad and embedded buttons. Play/Pause, Delete, Previous Clip/Rewind, Next Clip/Fast Forward, and Zoom round out the controls available on the Mino. Thin strips of holes run vertically along the left and right sides of the LCD screen. This is the Mino's playback speaker.

The back of the Flip Mino

The Left Side (3.25)
The left side of the Mino is home to the USB arm release tab and wrist strap anchor. Flip Video carried over its innovative USB structure from its first and second-generation camcorders, only the Mino's is the smallest yet. This profile view accentuates the Mino's uncannily thin body -it's like a cell phone.

The left side of the Flip Mino

The Top (5.0)
The top of the Mino houses the most nifty attribute: the spring-loaded USB arm. This thing pops up in an instant and is rarin' to go for upload action. Rather than place the USB arm on the left side like the Flip Ultra, Pure Digital decided to go for the top. This liberates a nice portion of your computer's connectivity.

The top of the Flip Mino