Flip Video Camcorder: 60-Minutes (Black)
by Flip Video
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List Price: Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Flip Video Camcorder: 60-Minutes (Black)
Customer Review: Flip Cameras are TERRIBLE
Summary: 1 Stars
My daughter recieved her Flip Mino less than a year ago as a gift from her boyfriend. She took it with her on her 2 week exchange trip to England. She had been looking forward to this trip for a year. Her best friend took the stills, she was taking the video. During the trip the camera stopped working and wouldn't turn on. Nothing she could do while she was there.
When she got back we called Flip, it was under warranty. they had us try resetting and then plugging it into the computer overnight. When none of that worked they accessed the camera remotely and determined that it had a defective battery. So it needed to be sent back (at my expense) I sent it priority mail on a Saturday, it was in their hands that Monday morning.
It took them all week to actually post that they received it. Every time I called they had no answers as to where the camera was or what was happening with it. Since it was a special order design they were supposed to call to confirm the design and order the new one. They never did. After 2 weeks of and repeatedly calling with increasing frustration and my obvious annoyance with them, they ordered a replacement and said they would escalate the order and priority ship it next day air. They said 24-48 hours to process. Well it's now 3 days and they issued a shipping label and it's not in the hands of UPS, so technically not shipped yet and it's listed as Ground!!!!!
We also just received an email that video retrieval was unsuccessful. It was a battery failure, they said they could retrieve the video. I think they lost the camera!!!
My daughter just had a competition that we didn't have the camera for and we are leaving for another and we still don't have it. That's 2 competitions we are missing being able to tape.
I also have no faith in the camera's reliability. I have no faith in Cisco, they lie, they don't do what they say they'll do and they need to work on their customer service....its
2 weeks and still don't have the replacement and still have not received a phone call back.
Customer Review: Good but not great
Summary: 3 Stars
For some reason, I was really excited to order this camera. I was convinced it would be the best thing ever.
Eh, it's okay. It's small, lightweight and fairly easy to use (I only stood there thinking I was recording something when I really wasn't one time) and I like the fact that I don't have to install any software on my computer and can plug this into my boyfriend's laptop knowing that I won't be breaking his "don't install any software" rule. Still, there are some changes I would make...
First, I really want to be able to attach it to a tripod. I didn't even think about how I might want to do this before I got it, but I've wanted to a bunch of times since getting it.
Second, a flip out usb connector sounds like a good idea, but I have yet to use it with a computer that has a usb port located in such a way as to make this convenient to connect....and I have two desktops, a laptop, a tablet pc and a monitor with usb ports built right into the base. I'd rather just have a mini usb port built into the side (right next to that tripod mount). I'm imagining them testing the thing out and realizing the flip out usb plug wasn't that great but by that time they had already spent so much time on the design making the flip part work and were so invested in the name and marketing was all set to roll on it, so they felt they needed to keep it.
Finally, if you use the built in Flip tools to compress your movie for the web, it ends up with a little ad for Flip cameras at the end. That's not really cool...I didn't know I was paying for that "feature". I did find that you can just use YouTube to compress your video for you and it won't have that ad at the end, but what if I want to host it on my own site instead?
In the end, I think the Flip is okay, but it's not really better than the movie feature on my four year old Canon PowerShot digital camera which, by the way, has a tripod mount and normal mini usb connection and the additional advantage of taking great still pics and using removable memory cards.
Customer Review: Flip Video Camcorder - You Get What You Pay For
Summary: 3 Stars
The Flip Video Camcorder works pretty much as advertised, and using it is really nothing more than pushing a "Record" button and a couple of navigation toggles. The video quality is what you should expect from a device costing $129.00 ... "good enough" grade for quick videos.
Do not expect anything from the "digital" zoom feature, unless strongly pixelated, noise-filled video with poor color matching is your goal. If you need a close up view ... move closer and leave the zoom alone.
Connecting to a Wintel machine was effortless, however, using the Flip Video with a Mactel machine was less than perfect. The *,avi video format is not "out-of-the-box" compatible with the native Quicktime Player, so users will almost certainly need to use Rosetta emulation in OSX to avoid frequent crashes. The included Macintosh compatible software also precludes the direct importing of the video streams into iMovie or iDVD.
As others have noted, use the Flip Video Camcorder for the quick and convenient shooting of simple videos ... not the birth of a child, not a Wedding, and not capturing Big Foot walking in the wild.
The video from my 7MP Nikon CoolPix camera is superior to the Flip Video, but the Flip Video Camcorder is a nice, compact addition to my Nikon D80 camera set-up so that I do not need to lug my HD Camcorder everywhere when photos are my primary concern.
Do not expect more that it can deliver, and you should be happy with the Flip Video Camcorder. If you think it will replace your aging Hi8 or Digital8 camcorder, or save you from buying a new HD camcorder, then you are probably not going to be very satisfied.
I place the Flip Video Camcorder somewhere between a highly advanced "toy" and a low-end digital video capture tool.
Customer Review: Vista Users Read On
Summary: 4 Stars
We received the flip video camcorder yesterday and it works great. We love it. It connects super easily to the computer and the program downloaded like it should. Everything was very easy to figure out and use.
The only problem is that the "movie maker" feature will not work. We read through everything, made sure we had the needed DirectX program, but it still will not work. After trying several things (and we are generally pretty smart when it comes to stuff like this...) nothing was working to get that feature to work. We emailed the Flip Video people. They emailed us back saying this (hope this is okay to post here):
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"The Flip Video camcorder does not support the Vista platform, so we can not guarantee that the Flip Video program will have full functionality. However, you should still be able to access your videos through My Computer.
We are working to support Vista in future camera models. We are also planning to support current Vista users, although we do not have a release date."
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Everything else with the program seems to work well. I can use their program to view the videos, upload to grouper, and send greeting cards, etc. It's fun to use. The only major disappointment is the problem with Vista. If you don't have Vista, it will probably all be just fine. If you do, be aware that it might have little problems. I personally think it's still worth the money. We'll try using Window's Movie Maker for now until they get it fixed (which they hopefully will). I am a little frustrated that it doesn't work because under the Product Description, it lists Vista as one it will work with...it does work, just not fully. Still worth the money, though!
Customer Review: Don't buy this.
Summary: 1 Stars
I would not recommend buying this no matter how tech-challenged or skilled you are. Too bad this site doesn't allow a no star rating because that's what this deserves.
I purchased this as a gift for a technologically challenged friend as it seemed very simple to use, and in reality it probably should be, but isn't.
The "zoom" feature is very difficult to use, its actually much easier to just move closer. The control button is small and does four things, or at least is intended to. Pushing the top zooms in and the bottom zooms out but more often it does absolutely nothing and your picture gets shakey from struggling with it. The volume adjustment uses the same button and is also very difficult to adjust and makes recording and playback a true hassle.
We were not able to download and install the necessary software from the camcorder to his computer running Windows XP. We tried multiple times, restarted the computer and tried again and were still unable to install the software. You can not view the videos without this specific software. The clips play as windows media sound files but not video. The website offers no alternative way to download the software and the FAQ section is useless.
So what's the bottom line? This is a camcorder that does not zoom in or out easily or efficiently. The sound adjustment is useless. You can't get your video clips out of the camcorder and view them because the software won't install. There is no tech support. Still thinking about purchasing this? Really???