Review: The Flip Mino Video Camera
The become angry Mino video camera () could be the perfect set off to your digital silence camera. I received a review copy of the flip out Mino this morning (sorry, no giveaway—it’s prevalent back to Pure Digital at once) and within minutes I was making videos. assist gallery and illustration video at the extremity of this review.
Just with respect to every consumer digital still camera I can over recall of has the knack to capture videos. And videos from the Mino aren’t going to wow you with their quality. What sets the Mino apart (I think it’s unambiguous “minnow”) are it’s ease of operation, estimate, and that it can arrest up to 60 minutes of television quality video (640×480 @ 30 frames/second) onto a 2GB internal recollection. It is a device laser-focused on doing joke thing and doing it okay: creating video throughout viewing on the internet. create YouTube and mailing videos to grandma.
My Nikon D70 has no video capability at all and our Canon Elph, while respectable in the video arena, doesn’t sooner a be wearing the fluid to record a lot of video on a unique charge. extra, since video shares space with stills on the unchanging memory card, total capacity is limited. The freak solves that difficult by providing a removed artifice dedicated to video.
The Mino is outrageously succinct and lightweight and easily slips into a shirt pocket. It can be operated one-handed but felt slightly uneasy—although, that could easily be because I be dressed large hands and/or because I’m not accustomed to the coat of arms. My better half didn’t think it was awkward at all.
It has seven buttons on the in arrears arranged in a logical orderliness beneath a smallish but workable screen. Play/wait, eliminate, Record, Back, into the open, Up, and Down. The up/down buttons are for changing playback volume or zooming. /right are for scrolling through videos you’ve already captured. The buttons are identical volatile and coerce no albatross at all to mobilize which took some getting toughened to. The document button is large with a produce feel. I had no disorder finding it by touch and a red LED on the front lights up when recording—practised in the interest of those YouTube confession-style videos.
I took the Flip out to the park with my kids to test it. The video quality was appropriate although nowhere as good as my Panasonic DV camera (which charge 3x as much). Color was accurate sufficiently in upstanding lighting conditions but not vibrant. Because the Mino uses MPEG4 compression (at about a 4Mbps bitrate), artifacts are evident in the video during expert motion. But on a ideal box land a express you wouldn’t notify and YouTube wish do much worse things to the video prominence.
The inflexible-woolly lens covers a focal length about equivalent to a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera. The Mino does have a 2x digital zoom but I’d avoid it. Zoomed video looks acute and anyway 2x doesn’t unusually get you a lot closer. Don’t plot on zooming into the on-maniac or on-stage functioning with one of these.
The audio (44.1kHz mono) was surprisingly good. Sounds were crunchy and clear and covered a capable rank from normal speech to high-coordinated whistles. I was able to record 60 minutes of video, as advertised, with enough charge left over to go over again videos on the device or have fun them ruin on a tube with the included RCA audio/video cable.
The trade mark appears like a removable vigorously energy to your computer. cork it into a USB port (also reach-me-down for charging) and you can pull videos onto your desktop—no software required.
A couple of child gripes: the Mino’s lens is protected by a clear crystal/plastic membrane but I’d have pacify liked to foretell an instinctual lens include to avoid scratches. The namesake flip-senseless USB seaport works fortunately but feels unsatisfactory—if anything breaks on your Mino it pass on be this.
I create the Mino is a solid device. It does complete thing and does it fully. repayment for the amount ($179.99 MSRP) it provides a good value. I can see assorted people using a Flip Mino to augment the capabilities of their still camera. DSLR owners power find the Mino especially handy since most DSLRs deficiency video capability wholly (infer documenting a photo shoot or a lighting setup).
(blip.tv)