Flip

The New York Times reports: [edited]

It's the Flip: a tiny, stripped-down video recorder the size of a digital camera. The latest model, called the Flip Ultra, had its debut six months ago. It's been the best-selling camcorder on Amazon.com since the day of its debut.

The Flip has been reduced to the purest essence of video capture. You turn it on, and it's ready to start filming in two seconds. You press the red button once to record and once to stop. You press Play to review the video, and the Trash button to delete a clip. There it is: the entire user's manual.

The video and audio quality is surprisingly good - not as sharp as a tape camcorder or even digital still cameras, but far superior to cellphone video. It has TV resolution (640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second), with softer images than you'd get with a real camcorder.

The shocker is the Flip's low-light abilities, which trump even $1,000 camcorders. Not only is the video grain-free, but recorded dim scenes actually look brighter than they looked to your naked eye.

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Brett's 2p'orth: This has been condensed from a much longer, interesting and well-worth-reading article.
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