![mino flip video camera mino flip video camera](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wuTvmpTmGEg/maxresdefault.jpg)
I was able to record 60 minutes of video, as advertised, with enough charge left over to review videos on the device or play them back on a television with the included RCA audio/video cable. Sounds were crisp and clear and covered a good range from normal speech to high-pitched whistles. The audio (44.1kHz mono) was surprisingly good. Don’t plan on zooming into the on-field or on-stage action with one of these.
![mino flip video camera mino flip video camera](https://imtc.qccdn.fr/test/camescope-de-poche/zoom/flip-video-mino-hd_001.jpg)
Zoomed video looks terrible and anyway 2x doesn’t really get you a lot closer. The Mino does have a 2x digital zoom but I’d avoid it. The fixed-focus lens covers a focal length approximately equivalent to a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera. But on a standard television set you wouldn’t notice and YouTube will do much worse things to the video quality. Because the Mino uses MPEG4 compression (at about a 4Mbps bitrate), artifacts are visible in the video during quick motion. Color was accurate enough in good lighting conditions but not vibrant. The video quality was decent although nowhere as good as my Panasonic DV camera (which cost 3x as much). I took the Flip out to the park with my kids to test it. I had no trouble finding it by touch and a red LED on the front lights up when recording-perfect for those YouTube confession-style videos. The record button is large with a good feel. The buttons are very sensitive and require no pressure at all to activate which took some getting used to. Left/right are for scrolling through videos you’ve already captured. The up/down buttons are for changing playback volume or zooming. Play/Pause, Delete, Record, Back, Forward, Up, and Down. It has seven buttons on the back arranged in a logical pattern beneath a smallish but workable screen. My wife didn’t think it was awkward at all. It can be operated one-handed but felt slightly awkward-although, that could easily be because I have large hands and/or because I’m not accustomed to the device. The Mino is extremely compact and lightweight and easily slips into a shirt pocket. The Flip solves that problem by providing a separate device dedicated to video. Plus, since video shares space with stills on the same memory card, total capacity is limited. My Nikon D70 has no video capability at all and our Canon Elph, while respectable in the video arena, doesn’t have the juice to record a lot of video on a single charge. Think YouTube and mailing videos to grandma. It is a device laser-focused on doing one thing and doing it well: creating video for viewing on the internet. What sets the Mino apart (I think it’s pronounced “minnow”) are it’s ease of use, size, and that it can capture up to 60 minutes of television quality video (640×480 30 frames/second) onto a 2GB internal memory. And videos from the Mino aren’t going to wow you with their quality. Just about every consumer digital still camera I can think of has the ability to capture videos. See gallery and sample video at the end of this review. I received a review copy of the Flip Mino this morning (sorry, no giveaway-it’s going back to Pure Digital soon) and within minutes I was making videos. The Flip Mino video camera (could be the perfect complement to your digital still camera.