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Flip Ultra
Price: £99.99

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: JJ O’Donoghue

This review updated: 16/08/2008
Featured in magazine:
Issue 191
Manufacturer Contacts:
Web Address: http://theflip.com


Best Price:
The camcorder market is a crowded and competitive place, so it came as a shock to everyone when the Flip, a small-fry upstart, burst onto the scene late last year in the US and became Amazon's fastest-selling camcorder ever. Now that it's crossed the Atlantic, pundits are expecting similarly high sales in the UK. The Flip Ultra, successor to the Flip Video, has improved video quality, greater capacity and comes with a tripod mount. It's so easy to use that its manufacturer could be forgiven for not shipping an instruction manual with it – shooting videos and sharing them on the internet is an absolute doddle.

Features:
Manufacturers often overload gadgets with features. This pleases the technophiles but the majority of us are left to suffer from featur-itis. Rest assured, the Flip Ultra packs the bare minimum of buttons: power, record, playback and a trash can. Other than that, this modest little fellow is almost featureless – save for the USB port that flips out from the side, giving the device its name.

Like a Zen master, the rest of its power comes from within: the software installed on the Flip means that once you're hooked up to your computer, videos are automatically uploaded.

Performance:
The Flip Ultra is powered by two AA batteries (included), which will last between two and five hours depending on the quality of batteries you buy. There are no tapes or discs so you'll have to transfer videos onto a computer when the memory is full, via the USB port. However, with 60 minutes of footage available, this is hardly restrictive. There's no optical viewfinder, no headphone jack, no high definition, no lens cap or flip-out screen – it's straightforward point and shoot, with a 2x digital zoom. Despite having so few features, the Flip Ultra manages to capture great grain-free video as well as making dimly lit scenes look much brighter.

Ease of use:
Herein lies the Flip Ultra's success. It is possibly the easiest camcorder to use on the market – akin to boiling a kettle or making toast. We tested this camera with a few friends who still don't know how to send group emails or change the settings on their digital cameras – not one of them wanted to let go of the Flip Ultra. Recording videos is just a matter of hitting the red button on the face of the camcorder. Hit it again to stop.

With all the software for editing and publishing built into the camcorder, it was incredibly simple to upload videos to the internet and even to do some basic editing.

Value for money:
With change from £100, it's no wonder the Flip Ultra is in hot demand. It's rare to get such high video and audio quality from a camcorder at this price. The Flip Ultra comes with all its own software ready to run so, once it's jacked into a computer, there's no need to spend money on appliances, software or memory cards – your only further expense will be the batteries.

More Digital video reviews:

• Plextor MediaX
• Aiptek PocketDV Z300HD-V
• Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA8
• Flip Ultra
• Pinnacle Video Transfer