If there ever was a product that failed to live up to it's potential, the Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder was that product. Small, easy to use, YouTube friendly, and everyone is doing the video thing these days. The Flip Video got all kinds of media love from USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and even Oprah used a Flip Video on her show. It's truly a great idea whose time has come, and people are buying them up, in spite of all their problems. Speaking of their problems, lets have a look shall we.
Shooting videos with the Flip Video, and viewing them on the camera seems to work fine. The problem comes once you attach the the video camera to your PC or MAC. Problems include intermittent uploading of videos. Meaning, sometimes videos upload and sometimes they don't . Sometimes only a few will upload, and sometimes none. In addition uploads can be painfully slow. Some consumers have reported complete computer crashes while attempting to load their videos. Even MAC users have seen their virtually bullet proof systems crash when hooked up to a Flip Video. Pure Digital, the company behind the camcorder has been madly releasing software, and firmware updates for Flip Video. Some of the patches do seem to be helping.
The other thing to consider is the quality of the video you plan on creating. The Flip Video, probably creates quality slightly better videos than most cell phones, but not as good as the videos from a decent digital still camera. It seems to be geared to the YouTube crowd, as that's about where the quality of the videos seem to fit. If your looking to shoot family and friends videos you want as keepsakes, it's probably better to go with a dedicated camcorder. If your only a casual video shooter, than maybe you should spend a few extra bucks on your digital still camera, and make sure it's got good video features.
I don't mean to pick on the Flip Video too much, but there are a few other smaller problems as well:
- Small size of unit can be cumbersome for people with larger adult size hands.
- Interface is not as simple to use as it should be.
- Customer service unable to keep up due to the popularity of the camera, and numerous software problems.
- Lens quality and placement make it prone to scratching.
