Flip slammed for being no better than digicam video
Michael Arrington says there's one essential problem with cheap, fashionable video cameras like the Flip and the Vado: the quality is worse than what you'll get from a half-decent pocket camera like a Canon Elph.
"So I haven’t actually tried out the new Flip Mino. But I’ve spoken with people who have, and I used the Flip Ultra, which launched late last year, for a while before abandoning it. And I just can’t figure out why people like this thing.None of the reviews compared the Flip to it’s core competition: normal digital cameras. Instead everyone focuses on the fact that Flip has sold nearly a million units, saying that’s 15-20% of the camcorder market - and the Flip is a fraction of the price of most of those competitors.
The Flip’s video quality (640×480) is much lower than most people would expect from a camcorder. But it happens to be exactly the same resolution as most digital cameras, almost all of which now offer video as well. And nearly 40 million of them sold in 2007. Canon alone sold nearly 9 million digital cameras last year.
The key response—that Flip is easier to use—is directly addressed: the Canon, he says, is just as easy to use. I have a recent Exilim, which comes with a record button on the back that immediately wakes the camera up and starts shooting YouTube-ready video: even easier! For Arrington, it comes down to this: "There is no way I’m going to drag two devices around when I only need one: The Flip loses."
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I've kinda been saying this all along.
I never understood the appeal of these things considering they are HIDEOUSLY overpriced and under-featured.
Oh, I mean "easy to use".
Spare me.
Same.. 1.5" screen and no removable storage? Who's buying these?
I'd buy one.
I'm no video-maker, I just want something that's light and simple and will capture thirty seconds of good-enough footage at a time. I'd use a compact camera if I had one, but I prefer to carry around an EOS 5D, which - rightly so - doesn't have a way of taking video footage.
It may well be that once I get used taking video footage I'll upgrade to something better, but for now a cheap crappy video camera is exactly what I want.
Well, my young niece and nephew liked mine very much.
The problem is that no one who reads this blog would appreciate the simplicity. Yeah, my cheap digicam has a separate video button, too. You think my mother-in-law would remember which one it is? She wouldn't.
You might also have better luck with it in Union Station. :)
Tommy watch the generalizations :)
I agree with Tommy. I purchased one of these for my 8 year old daughter. Best "toy" ever. Gets tons of use and everybody can use it simply.
It's one of those products that is just right. I appreciate the simplicity.
Most cell phones nowadays also play MP3's, many even have removable memory cards. But the iPod Nano still sells.
Except that Canon keeps clinging to the horrific MJPEG video format. Yes YouTube and everyone else will take it an encode it, but the files are ginormous. Once they get with the times and offer an option for MPEG4 recording, they'll be able to match the Flip's 60 minute record time on a couple GB card, rather than only a few minutes. Then the Flip will be irrelevant.
Uh... is it just me, or is there no link back to the original article here?
Well, as far as I can tell, the cheapest Exilim costs 2.5x what the cheapest Flip does.
My wife ordered the Flip Mino last night. It's the first video camera she's ever been even slightly interested in using, much less purchasing. The appeal of a fixed focus, hard to screw-up device with integrated memory, battery etc really appeals to her.
Honestly, I think part of the appeal is the cheap, plastic ruggedness of it. With any of those cameras, she would be freaking out about dropping it, and thus afraid to use it. Also, by emulating the shape of a camera phone, it's subconsciously relating itself to a technology she's familiar with, comfortable with, and not intimidated by.
I don't need or want one of those purple-fringing can't-take-clean-photos-after-6pm digicams. I'm rarely more than 30 feet from one of my dSLRs.
Advantages of Flip: Cheaper than digital elph (elphes? elves?). Good video quality (if low resolution). Big aperture (f/2.4). Excellent low light video quality. Simple operation. Uses AA's, which are always available in my camera bag. USB dongle built in. Good internal memory. Rugged.
Most important, it's a design that people WANT to use. You pull it out at a party, and everyone wants to use it. It's purpose and operation are immediately obvious. There's a reason the iPod succeeds in a market full of devices that "do a lot more a lot better."
"The Flip’s video quality (640×480) is much lower than most people would expect from a camcorder."
What? Standard NTSC is 648 by 486 (a few extra pixels for metadata encoding). Excepting PAL, pretty much all non-HDTV camcorders record at this resolution. Even really cheap HD camcorders are in the $300 range.
Andrew: Point taken. I meant that no one here would appreciate the simplicity in the first-person, "let's me actually use it" way that my mother-in-law would.
Which is still a generalization, but a fairly accurate one, I think.
(Not to malign my mother-in-law. But she really does just throw up her hands at most technology.)
It does often surprise me that some people would prefer - let alone get excited by - a gadget that has fewer features just because it's "easy to use". But that is indeed the case, as many commenters have pointed out. When it comes to gadgets in general, it's very very hard to design something with MORE features AND that is easier to use, since the methods of calling up those features (menus, buttons) must be quickly-accessible enough for the advanced user but hidden-away enough for the beginner.
Many compact digital cameras do shoot MPEG4 (unlike what BXD is assuming), some even at higer resolutions than 640x480. They have removable storage (so you can put 4-8 Gb in them and carry a spare card or two in your wallet if you want) and zoom, and they take decent photographs. (Yes, DAVEYBOT, not as good as my 1Dmk2's, but good enough for Facebook). It's very interesting, and undeniable, that BECAUSE they can do all these things, many people would prefer a Flip. People are weird. You think they'd base their purchases on features-to-cost ratios, that they would understand that anything becomes "easy to use" after you play with it for ten minutes, that they would know better than to judge a book by its cover (i.e. to buy a gadget because it looks cool and because its interface is immediately intuitive, rather than intuitive-after-5-minutes-of-use). But they don't. He who realizes this can create an inferior gadget, slap a higher price tag on it, and sell more of them, as long as the interface is designed so that even... TOMMY's mother in law could use it.
Ditto on what BXD points out in comment #7. I'd do a lot more video shooting on my PowerShot if a 1 GB data card didn't hold a mere eight minutes of video...
The one advantage of the Flip no one has mentioned is its outstanding low-light performance. It's better in this respect than many DV cameras that cost several times as much (and much better than any digicams I've seen).
Exactly! I just got back from a trip to San Francisco and my videos of the Aquarium and Sea Lions at the bay look great, surpassing even my own expectations. I wouldn't film a movie on it (or even a short film more than 5 minutes). but it's incredibly handy. It does however take about 2 Mb per second, which ads up pretty fast if your using 512 and 256 Mb cards.
i think the exciting thing about the Flip is that it's (relatively) cheap. the canon elph may take prettier videos, but would you duct tape it to your helmet and skydive? or toss it onto a conveyor belt and let it be X-rayed at the airport security checkpoint just to see what's inside?
I've had my Flip for about 6 months now, and love it. Even though I'm kind of a gadget freak, the simplicity is very appealing. And rugged? I left it out in the rain, shooting pictures of hummingbirds, and it was just fine.
The argument that other camcorders are "better" because they have more features misses the point. More features do not equal better in many peoples' minds.
In case the writer hasn't noticed, there is a growing demand in software for programs with fewer features that thus becomes easier to use.
Some people are drawn to complexity, but I suspect there is a head-space limit to complexity in one's life, and just living in the modern world, one gets pretty full up. How many buttons and menu items do you have to deal with on a daily basis? Do you want to learn one more interface?
The Flip adds functionality to a life without adding complexity. One button turns it on, another starts recording. Two button pushes get you a whole new ability. For many, that's a huge plus.