Gadget review: Flip Mino HD

The devices that pioneered the "point and shoot" video niche have finally come to the Middle East. The oh-so-neatly named Flip cameras take the pain out of shooting high-quality videos and making home movies out of them. I had a chance to play around with the MinoHD, RRP Dh699, and loved how it takes literally two button presses to go from Off to Recording; and one more click to view your last shot video. The screen is by no means impressive but it's not meant to be either — it does a decent job of showing you how the last video looked, along with the sound from the built-in speakers. Of course, if you don't quite like it, you can delete the video from the device with the Delete button. This device does not require a user manual.

The video quality is impressive (shot at 720p) and the built-in microphone does a decent job of capturing sound. The MinoHD does come with image stabilisation but it was no match for my shaky hands. Despite that, I was impressed overall with the device; both in terms of the shooting experience and video quality. I do wish, though, that it came with a stillshot mode; I'm still bemused by why it isn't there.

The device comes with the FlipShare software pre-loaded into it (no CDs required) which lets you create, organise and share movies — and this is where Flip really shines. Creating a movie from multiple clips with a layer of music is really a painless procedure and it is actually difficult to go wrong with it. The tool also has the ability to take a snapshot from any video, so it almost makes up for that shortcoming, but not quite.

The movie created can be copied back to the camera, which you can connect to a TV with its HDMI port. That means you don't need to make a DVD or copy it to any other drives — connect Flip to the TV and watch away.

However, the question remains — why would you buy a separate device for filming videos when a lot of mobile phones can do the same? Not everyone will. However, with the huge battery-life issues that mobile phones usually come with, it's probably not worth it to shoot longer videos. The pain from the complexity of launching the camera and going into the video mode was enough of a deterrent for me to shoot videos; with the Flip, though, I did find myself shooting a lot more videos. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a second of video would be worth 24,000.

Bhavishya Kanjhan is a digital marketing professional and an early
adopter of all things digital. Follow his tweets on @bhavishya